Vintage Photos

in Adobe® Photoshop®

Photos with a vintage look are all the rage these days. Here, we’ll show you how to give your own photos that great, aged look! There are pretty many steps in this process, but none of them are difficult and we’ll take you through each in detail.

These instructions assume that you are comfortable working in Photoshop. If you need help with the basics of Photoshop, be sure to check out our video tutorials on working with Quickpages in the Learning Center.

Let’s get started by opening a copy of the picture that you want to age in Photoshop. By working on a copy of your original picture, you can be sure that nothing happens to the original.

When you open your photo, you’ll probably see that, in the layers palette, the layer that the photo is on is called ‘Background’ and has a small lock icon next to it. When you open a digital photo in Photoshop, normally the image opens with only a background layer:

The Background is a special layer in Photoshop and it has some limitations on it that normal layers in Photoshop don’t have. The Background layer can’t include areas of transparency and it has to always remain on the bottom of the stack of layers. Background layers can’t be deleted, and they can’t be moved. And, most important for what we’re doing here, you can’t apply layer styles to a Background layer.

So, since we want to apply some layer styles to our picture, we’ll need to convert the Background layer to an ordinary layer. To do this, double click on the name of the Background layer in the layers palette. You can then type a new name for the layer or accept the default that Photoshop uses, “Layer 0″:

Click ‘OK’.

The first thing I’m going to do is add a very small blur to the image. To do this, choose

Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur:

Set the Gaussian Blur to use a radius of 0.5 pixels and click ‘OK’:

Now, I’m going to add some noise to the photo to simulate grain. To do this, choose:

Filter>Noise>Add Noise:

Use the following settings in the Add Noise dialog box:

• Amount: 3%
• Uniform Distribution
• Monochromatic

Click ‘OK’.

Your photo should now have a very subtle blurred texture.

At this point, I like to add some very subtle distressing to the edges of the photo using layer styles. First, we’ll apply an inner shadow to the photo. To do this, click on the fx symbol at the bottom of the layers palette and choose ‘Inner Shadow’:

This will bring up the Inner Shadow Layer Style dialog box. Use the following settings:

• Blend mode: Multiply
• Opacity: 55%
• Distance: 0 px
• Choke: 0 px
• Size: 122 px

Click ‘OK’ here and you’ll see that the edges of your photo are now slightly darkened:

Now, let’s add an inner glow layer effect to give the edges of the photo a little more distressing. To do this, click on the fx symbol at the bottom of the layers palette and choose ‘Inner Glow’:

In the Inner Glow Layer Style dialog box, use the following settings:

• Blend mode: Screen
• Color: white (FFFFFF)
• Opacity: 36%
• Size: 24 px

Keep all the other settings at their default value:

Click ‘OK’.

I want to add in a little more distressing, so I’m going to use a light grunge texture I downloaded from Bittbox. Bittbox is a great source for textures, so you may want to add that site to your favorites!

Open the texture that you want to use and rotate it and resize it to fit as needed. Now, drag the texture onto your photo, then close out the texture file.

Select the texture layer and desaturate its color so that it won’t change the color of the photo. Do this by choosing:

Image>Adjustments>Desaturate

Now, I’ll change the blending mode of the texture layer to Divide and the opacity to 50%. But, you’ll want to play with these two setting when you’re working with your own photo to get a look you like. Here’s my photo:

Next, add a soft haze to the photo by adding a solid color adjustment layer. First select the top texture layer and then click on the black and white circle at the bottom of the layers palette. Choose ‘Solid Color’ from the pop-out menu.

When the color picker dialog box comes up, code in the color ivory, hex code #f7f7df:

Click ‘OK’.

Change the opacity for the color adjustment layer to 15%:

Next, add a levels adjustment layer by again clicking on the black and white circle at the bottom of the layers palette. This time, choose ‘Levels’:

When the Levels adjustment panel comes up, move the middle slider from 1.0 to 1.2. This will lighten and slightly fade your photo:

Now, we’ll add a gradient map adjustment layer. This layer will help to add a vintage tint to areas of the photo. Add this adjustment by clicking on the black and white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and choosing ‘Gradient Map’ from the pop-out menu:

When the Gradient Map adjustment panel comes up, click on the color bar:

This will bring up the Gradient Editor. There, set the foreground color by clicking on the small box on the left and below the color bar:

Then click on the color block towards the bottom of the dialog box:

This will bring up the color picker dialog box. Code in a dark pink color, hex code #a8235d:

Click ‘OK’.

Now, do the same thing to change the background color. In the Gradient Editor, click on the small box on the right and below the color bar:

And, then click on the color block towards the bottom of the dialog box:

When the color picker dialog box comes up, code in light blue, hex #afd6f0:

Click ‘OK’ and then click ‘OK’ again to close the Gradient Editor.

Change the blending mode for the Gradient Map adjustment layer to ‘Soft Light’:

Now, add another gradient map adjustment layer, this one a black to white gradient map. Add this adjustment layer by clicking on the black and white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and choosing ‘Gradient Map’ from the pop-out menu:

Click on the color bar to edit this gradient:

We’ll use the black to white gradient preset at the top of the Gradient Editor. So, click on the top left preset in the Gradient Editor and click ‘OK’:

Adjust the opacity to of this layer until it looks good to you. I used 10% here:

We’re almost done! For our last layer, we’ll add a solid color adjustment layer to give our photo the blue cast you see in vintage photos. Add the solid color adjustment layer by clicking on the black and white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and choosing ‘Solid Color’ from the pop-out menu:

When the color picker dialog box comes up, code in a deep blue color, hex code #011073:

Click ‘OK’

Now, change the blending mode for this adjustment layer to ‘Exclusion’ and change the opacity to 40%:

That’s it! You’re done! Your photo should now have a great vintage look.