Create a vintage photo effect in Photoshop

Today I was playing with Photoshop looking for some interesting photo effect and I found a quick and easy way to convert a modern photo in a vintage one.

I have already created an action to simulate this effect in Vintage colors effect action for Photoshop, but I am sure you’ll like this effec too.

Follow me through this very easy tutorial and you’ll find by yourself how easy is to achieve this effect.

1) Open your photo

Photoshop Vintage effect

2) Set your foreground and background colors respectively to #ff0000 and #00ff00

Photoshop Vintage effect

3) Duplicate the photo layer

Photoshop Vintage effect

4) With the newly created layer use a Gradient Map

Photoshop Vintage effect

5) On the same layer, use Blending Options

Photoshop Vintage effect

6) Select Blend Mode to Color and Opacity to 50%

Photoshop Vintage effect

7) Flatten the image

Photoshop Vintage effect

8) Apply an Add Noise filter to the only layer you should have

Photoshop Vintage effect

9) Set the filter with 2% Gaussian Monochromatic values

Photoshop Vintage effect

10) Enjoy the result

Photoshop Vintage effect

You may need to play with the last two steps values in order to fit the effect to your needs.

And for the laziest of you, I made an action that does the task automatically! Download the action.

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63 Responses

  1. s0d4player says:

    A simple but a nice looking effect.

  2. jon says:

    The tutorial is great.Could you please indicate which gradient should be use for grayscale mapping.

  3. AAR says:

    Exelente!

  4. ettey says:

    great tutorial! thanks for the action! :D

  5. segunda s. palakpak says:

    great! thanx for the tutorial!

    nwayz, i played around with it using the following colors:

    foreground color: FF00EA (pink)
    background color: CAE200 (lime green)

    it produced nice results still.. ;)
    thanx for the ps action..hehe

  6. Sandra says:

    I love it!! thats wut i was looking for!!

  7. yu says:

    help… i downloaded the action but i don’t know where to find it?? where can i find it?? help….

  8. paulette says:

    i dont really think that looks like its a vintage photo it looks just like a green contrast we were born for this!!!!!

  9. paulette says:

    this person is absoulutley right i hated that part mi picture loooks kind of bad i want mi picture to look more vintagey i gotta get thruu this.

  10. segunda s. palakpak says:

    i really like this tutorial..real nice..what’s even more interesting is the different kinds of results you get when you play around with all sorts of colors and blending modes..

    but i guess, the picture you have (the car) is really well suited for this effect..maybe that’s why other people were complaining why they didn’t have the same results that you showed here.. ;)

  11. RD says:

    Do you have a larger size version of the photo used here?

  12. eric says:

    cool~~~i like it,thanks!

  13. sarath says:

    vary good

  14. Pradis says:

    simple & nice, great to come across this tutorial.

  15. Dan says:

    “And for the laziest of you, I made an action that does the task automatically! Download the action.”

    Thanks for thinking of me! =p

  16. [...] 7. Create a vintage photo effect in Photoshop [...]

  17. david says:

    how do I run the action??

    thx!

  18. Samantha says:

    I really don’t want to be mean but my photo looks crappy nd I did it exactly like this :/

  19. Kara says:

    Thanks so much, this was awesome!

  20. pligg.com says:

    Create a vintage photo effect Photoshop Tutorial…

    I have already created an action to simulate this effect in Vintage colors effect action for Photoshop, but I am sure you’ll like this effect too….

  21. rob h says:

    Great effect. I used it and it works well. I also add in some yellow and desaturate a little

  22. shaman4d says:

    Great! Really cool!

  23. SALWA says:

    this was excellent thank you heaps <3

  24. simple & nice, great to come across this tutorial.

  25. [...] Create A Vintage Photo Effect In Photoshop [...]

  26. Great and simple tutorial! The colors that you chose are perfect.

    Nice job!

  27. Daniel says:

    This is great. You have no idea how glad I am to have found this site, and I really appreciate your effort in putting this together.

  28. Daniel says:

    Just to add to the one person who said it looks bad. On certain pictures a Blend Mode Opacity of 50% will be too much, but if you experiment around on these pictures, it’s usually just a case of setting this level at 25%-35% instead.

  29. Amanda says:

    Thanks! This looks cool, but I don’t know if it worked as well on my picture of an older house near my brother’s school…cool effect anyway! And that’s a cool pic of the car too = D

    I didn’t use the lime green as my background color though, I used #f9d64c and I thought the gold/yellow worked really well as well. I had a higher noise % too. I guess it depends on the picture?

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  32. Dimi Geo says:

    great! thanx for the tutorial!

  33. [...] een SLR, want het kost niks en je hebt direct resultaat. Inderdaad, waarom niet in Photoshop. KLIK __________________ Een vicieuze cirkel waar je kan aan sterven, is niet kunnen eten van de [...]

  34. Ashokkumar says:

    great!!!!!!!!!!!!!..

  35. badal says:

    excellent combination in colour

  36. Sushie says:

    I love this effect! Thanks!

  37. [...] Create a vintage photo effect [...]

  38. SeattleGuy says:

    That looks like one of Rick Sammon’s photos from Cuba.

  39. [...] Create A Vintage Photo Effect in Photoshop [...]

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