Part Three: Creating the Vintage Feel

The original vintage postcard has seen many decades, so it has some creasing. It also has a slight graininess to it,and dark edges. Most importantly, it has a change in focus. We”l try to duplicate this depth of field and aged look. We’ll start with blurring the foreground and background.

1. Select the top layer in the stack (“green”) and press call of these keys at the same time: Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Mac: Shift+Cmd+Opt+E). This merges all your layers and puts them on a new layer at the top. This way we can blur parts of the image without flattening our image.
2. Right-click on the new merged layer and select Convert to Smart Object. This will allow us to run a blur filter, then erase away part of it because it is a Smart Filter.

3. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 2.5 pixels, and click OK.

The new Smart Filter you just created has a Filter Effects mask. We’re going to paint black on this mask to hide the blur effect over the lady.

4. Click on the Filter Effects mask to select it.

5. Press your D key to set the foreground color to black (Default).
6. Select a large, soft brush. I used a 65px brush at 0% hardness.
7. Paint in the image window inside the lady. Try not to go right to the edges – they can be a tad blurry…
8. …except around her face. Change the brush hardness to 100% and paint inside her face, carefully going right up to the edges.

If you go outside the edges of the lady, simply press X to switch to white and paint the blur back in.

Our picture is looking a little dark compared to the vintage model. We’ll lighten it a bit.

9. Click on the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and select Levels.
10. In the Adjustments panel, drag the white slider on the top right a bit to the left. It should end up right where the histogram starts to rise.

Time to burn in those outer edges.

11. Add a new layer at the top and name it “edges”. Set its blend mode to Multiply.
12. Select a large, soft brush. In the Control panel, set the Flow: to 50%.
13. Paint unevenly around the edges. Keep your brush cursor a little more than halfway outside of the image edges.

I think the lilies need to be in sharp focus too. They are what the lady appears to be looking at, so they are a secondary focal point. This will echo the crispness of the flowers in the vintage lady’s hair.

14. Click on the Layer Effects mask for the merged layer again.
15. Set the foreground color to black, select a small, hard-edged brush, and paint inside each of the lilies.

It’s okay to go outside the edges here a bit. We are going for authenticity, not realism.

Finally, let’s add the cardboard for that grainy texture and creases.

16. Open the cardboard image and drag it into our postcard file. Name the new layer “cardboard” and move the layer to just below the Levels adjustment layer (and above the merged layer).
17. Set the blend mode for the “cardboard” layer to Overlay, and reduce its opacity to 50%.

Here’s a close-up of the texture and creased effect.

You’re finished! Here’s the final image:

 

Have any questions? Did I leave something out? Please leave a comment below! Thanks!

 

 

 

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Comments

6 Comments

• 

  By huwaw69, 05/13/2009 @ 6:02 am

  wow great effect man! thanks for this guide, the output is really awesome
• 

  By Dawn Pedersen, 05/13/2009 @ 7:13 am

  Thanks, huwaw!
• 

  By freemoon, 05/14/2009 @ 12:32 pm

  Lovely. Thanks a lot!
• 

  By Dawn Pedersen, 05/14/2009 @ 3:18 pm

  Thanks and you’re welcome, freemoon.
• 

  By gavin, 07/21/2009 @ 7:30 am

  hey i love the tutorial, the hand tinted effects were very cool, but i just wanna say one thing.
  if you look at the vintage picture, you see that the only places in focus are the what lands in the cameras depth of field. now when you blurred everything in the background but unblurred the lilies, that wouldn’t make sense from a camera viewpoint. you wouldn’t have objects that were blurred , unblurred, blurred, unblurred etc as you went along the plane. so it really gives the new postcard a selective blurred feel, which takes away from it’s authenticity. it’s just hard to believe that a postcard from the 20′s or 30′s would have selective blurring.
  other than that i loved the tutorial!
• 

  By Dawn Pedersen, 07/22/2009 @ 1:53 pm

  Thanks for the feedback, Gavin! I was taking a little artistic license in a detour from the true vintage look.

 

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