Harmonystar
04-02-2010, 10:30 PM
So technology has taken us leaps and bounds in photography. Digital images are so sharp, the colors so vibrant, I love them! But with this great new digital age in photography an odd new trend started, making these bright beautiful images look like old and damaged photos. At first I thought it was the silliest thing ever but I came around to the beauty of these old photographs and the fun of making some of my own. Wanna give it try?
Here's my beginning photo
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/1-6.jpg
Silly kid i s pushing this poor lamb around. Anyhow lets make this sepia. There's several ways to do this. You can fill a new layer with brown and then set the blending mode as color or you can do it using an adjustment layer. I did it this way:
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/2-6.jpg
(if you don't have this option in elements you can do it the afore mentioned way)
at the bottom of your layers pallet find this black & white circle click it and choose a hue/saturation layer. This will put a new layer in your pallet.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/3-6.jpg
Here you can see my numbers, make sure you click the colorize box.
After looking at it I decided I wanted it a touch warmer. I could have gone back in this hue/saturation later and tweek it, but because I knew it would be easy, instead I made another adjustment layer with the photo filter adjustment.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/4-6.jpg
I used a preset warming filter. (warming filter (81))
Now remember the Bokeh technique I taught you here: Dec. - Filter your Filters (http://forums.gingerscraps.net/showthread.php?5588-Dec.-Filter-your-Filters) I'm going to do that.
Only I used a layer mask and drew on it in gray with a soft brush over my subject instead of using the gradient, it's similar though.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/5-6.jpg
If you picture is especially sharp you may also want to add noise by going to filter - Noise - Add Noise add enough to give it a softer look but not too grainy. If you have a crappy camera like mine there's already noise hee. (This photo however was taken by my BF and her fabulous camera so I did add noise.
Now for some real fun. I gound this cool old texture and I'm going to add it to my photo
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/6-6.jpg
you can find some cool textures here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ttvdust/ and here: http://lostandtaken.com/
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/7-6.jpg
I placed this texture over my photo and set the blend mode to overlay. Play with the blend mode to find what looks best with your texture. I then used an eraser at 50% to lighten the texture right over Jaden's face cuase he had a big ol dot right on his face. (this can also be done with a mask or even a clone or healing tool for strong marks) You also may feel the texture is too strong for your picture, you can then lessen the opacity to get it just how you like it.
For the fun of it I added an old picture border.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/8-6.png
I set it on top and set the blending mode to Darken so that it would blend with my picture.
So there we have one old looking picture!
Here's one I did in a faded black & white.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/9-6.jpg
So there ya have it! Go make your photos look old! Have fun! I did!
And just because I love you, if you liked that old border I added to the sepia one? well I actually took that from a real old photograph I have. You can have it if you like get it here:
http://www.4shared.com/file/255595411/e3dd03ae/HS-frame1.html
Here's my beginning photo
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/1-6.jpg
Silly kid i s pushing this poor lamb around. Anyhow lets make this sepia. There's several ways to do this. You can fill a new layer with brown and then set the blending mode as color or you can do it using an adjustment layer. I did it this way:
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/2-6.jpg
(if you don't have this option in elements you can do it the afore mentioned way)
at the bottom of your layers pallet find this black & white circle click it and choose a hue/saturation layer. This will put a new layer in your pallet.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/3-6.jpg
Here you can see my numbers, make sure you click the colorize box.
After looking at it I decided I wanted it a touch warmer. I could have gone back in this hue/saturation later and tweek it, but because I knew it would be easy, instead I made another adjustment layer with the photo filter adjustment.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/4-6.jpg
I used a preset warming filter. (warming filter (81))
Now remember the Bokeh technique I taught you here: Dec. - Filter your Filters (http://forums.gingerscraps.net/showthread.php?5588-Dec.-Filter-your-Filters) I'm going to do that.
Only I used a layer mask and drew on it in gray with a soft brush over my subject instead of using the gradient, it's similar though.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/5-6.jpg
If you picture is especially sharp you may also want to add noise by going to filter - Noise - Add Noise add enough to give it a softer look but not too grainy. If you have a crappy camera like mine there's already noise hee. (This photo however was taken by my BF and her fabulous camera so I did add noise.
Now for some real fun. I gound this cool old texture and I'm going to add it to my photo
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/6-6.jpg
you can find some cool textures here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ttvdust/ and here: http://lostandtaken.com/
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/7-6.jpg
I placed this texture over my photo and set the blend mode to overlay. Play with the blend mode to find what looks best with your texture. I then used an eraser at 50% to lighten the texture right over Jaden's face cuase he had a big ol dot right on his face. (this can also be done with a mask or even a clone or healing tool for strong marks) You also may feel the texture is too strong for your picture, you can then lessen the opacity to get it just how you like it.
For the fun of it I added an old picture border.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/8-6.png
I set it on top and set the blending mode to Darken so that it would blend with my picture.
So there we have one old looking picture!
Here's one I did in a faded black & white.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn85/harmonystar1899/tutorials/9-6.jpg
So there ya have it! Go make your photos look old! Have fun! I did!
And just because I love you, if you liked that old border I added to the sepia one? well I actually took that from a real old photograph I have. You can have it if you like get it here:
http://www.4shared.com/file/255595411/e3dd03ae/HS-frame1.html