Create a vintage photo effect in Photoshop

October 15, 2007 • Photoshop by Emanuele Feronato • 90 Comments

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.

Rate this post: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (95 votes, average: 4.52 out of 5)
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This post has 90 comments

  1. s0d4player

    on October 18, 2007 at 12:15 am

    A simple but a nice looking effect.

  2. jon

    on October 18, 2007 at 8:25 am

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

  3. AAR

    on October 26, 2007 at 4:09 am

    Exelente!

  4. ettey

    on October 31, 2007 at 7:52 am

    great tutorial! thanks for the action! :D

  5. segunda s. palakpak

    on November 16, 2007 at 9:42 am

    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

    on November 18, 2007 at 3:34 am

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

  7. yu

    on December 8, 2007 at 9:25 am

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

  8. paulette

    on December 11, 2007 at 8:27 pm

    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

    on December 11, 2007 at 8:29 pm

    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

    on March 7, 2008 at 3:00 am

    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.. ;)

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    on April 2, 2008 at 3:21 am

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    on April 4, 2008 at 6:04 pm

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  13. RD

    on August 6, 2008 at 6:57 pm

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

  14. eric

    on August 19, 2008 at 3:17 am

    cool~~~i like it,thanks!

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    on August 19, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    [...] Vintage photo effect [...]

  16. eltallergrafico.com » Blog Archive » Tutoriales para arreglar tus fotos en Photoshop !! jiji

    on October 3, 2008 at 7:52 am

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    on October 9, 2008 at 6:38 pm

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    on November 15, 2008 at 12:48 pm

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  19. sarath

    on November 24, 2008 at 3:47 am

    vary good

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    on December 6, 2008 at 2:22 am

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  22. Pradis

    on December 14, 2008 at 2:46 am

    simple & nice, great to come across this tutorial.

  23. Dan

    on December 23, 2008 at 1:58 am

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

    Thanks for thinking of me! =p

  24. Amazing Photoshop Tutorials | Delliblog

    on February 1, 2009 at 3:49 am

    [...] Vintage photo effect [...]

  25. 40+ Useful Photoshop Effects | Listfied

    on April 8, 2009 at 7:37 pm

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

  26. david

    on May 6, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    how do I run the action??

    thx!

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    on May 7, 2009 at 2:54 pm

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  29. Samantha

    on May 7, 2009 at 7:46 pm

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

  30. Kara

    on May 14, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Thanks so much, this was awesome!

  31. pligg.com

    on May 17, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    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….

  32. Photo Effects Photoshop Tutorials | tutorialsandreviews.co.uk

    on June 2, 2009 at 12:36 pm

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  33. rob h

    on June 3, 2009 at 3:56 pm

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

  34. shaman4d

    on June 12, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    Great! Really cool!

  35. SALWA

    on August 13, 2009 at 1:16 pm

    this was excellent thank you heaps <3

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    on August 25, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    simple & nice, great to come across this tutorial.

  37. 30 Fantastic Ways To Enhance Your Photos | Web Media Magazine

    on August 29, 2009 at 1:13 pm

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  40. Rodrigo Teixeira

    on September 27, 2009 at 5:47 pm

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

    Nice job!

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    on October 15, 2009 at 2:33 pm

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  42. Daniel

    on October 23, 2009 at 4:41 am

    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.

  43. Daniel

    on October 23, 2009 at 5:34 am

    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.

  44. Amanda

    on December 13, 2009 at 7:51 am

    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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  49. Dimi Geo

    on February 2, 2010 at 5:32 pm

    great! thanx for the tutorial!

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  51. Ashokkumar

    on March 7, 2010 at 5:58 pm

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

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  56. badal

    on April 27, 2010 at 1:36 pm

    excellent combination in colour

  57. Sushie

    on May 14, 2010 at 12:19 am

    I love this effect! Thanks!

  58. Learn From The Net » Blog Archive » Vintage and Aging Photo Effect Tutorials – The Ultimate Round-Up

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  60. SeattleGuy

    on June 4, 2010 at 7:33 pm

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

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  64. Lisa Franco

    on September 3, 2010 at 10:11 pm

    I don’t know how to change background and foreground

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  66. Ivan

    on September 12, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    Simple and effective!

  67. Modina

    on September 12, 2010 at 5:41 pm

    Thank you! Very interesting effect!!! Thanks for the action too!!!!

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  70. emarianna

    on November 10, 2010 at 8:03 pm

    simples,adorei o efeito!

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  81. Nelson

    on July 9, 2011 at 11:15 pm

    If I had a picture that looked like the end result I’d want to make it look like the starting one!

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  85. Manina

    on October 14, 2011 at 4:36 am

    Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!!!

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  87. mert

    on November 5, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    Very very beautifull

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    on January 12, 2012 at 6:36 am

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