chief
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Looking for a quick way to transform your photos into handsome, convincing vintage art? Lots of programs offer vintage photograph filters, but these are often rough, and give unexciting, unconvincing results. With a few moments in practically any version of Photoshop, you can make realistic-looking vintage photos from nearly any picture you might have on your hard drive. Here’s how to do it.
I came across this pic of the King of Bhutan and thought it had some nice possibilities. You will, of course, be using whatever photo you want. I recommend one with high resolution, and good contrast between lights and darks. You can, of course, use any photo, but some will give you stronger results that others.
Press
Then, press
Go to FIlters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the “Radius” to 1.0, or more if you want.
Our image is looking nicely sepia toned already, with softened edges from the Gaussian blur.
Press
Fill your new layer with black by going to Edit > Fill and tell the Fill window to “Use” Black. From there, you’ll want to open Filters > Render > Clouds to fill that layer with the texture below.
The layer of clouds should look about like this. If you used Filters > Render > Difference Clouds, it won’t look very different.
Set your Layer Effect to “Screen” in your Layers Palette. And bump the “Opacity” down to 50%.
Make of copy of the layer by right clicking and pressing “Duplicate.”
While on your new duplicated layer, Go to Filters > Noise > Add Noise and use settings similar to this. It’s important to use the “Monochromatic” setting.