You surely have seen those who have found an old family photograph and paid to have it “restored” to appear newer, repair scratches, rips, and tears, and to even convert a black & white photograph into something with more color.  How about the reverse process, taking something new and making it appear aged and worn?  Taking a bright and vivid photo, we will use some basic techniques in Adobe Photoshop to do just that.

For the purpose of this tutorial, you could actually get away with using a program other than Adobe Photoshop.  Programs such as Paint Shop Pro and Adobe Elements offer similar features that when learned, can be applied to achieve much of the same effects that we will cover here.  You also are not required to have a specific version of Adobe Photoshop.  With all of that said, this tutorial was written using Adobe Photoshop CS1 so it will be easier to follow along if you have that application.

I like to start off any tutorial that I write with a standard disclaimer.  This is not the only way to achieve these effects.  Much of what I accomplish is done through trial and error, which creates an original image, but also makes the process much more difficult to document.  The workflow can be automated to simplify the overall process, however, you might want to reconsider that. 

OK, so let’s get started.  Photo selection is critical to pulling this off.  Not every photo will work broken down and aged, so having the right image to begin is a very important step.  This image already has a washed feeling to it, so it should fit right into our tutorial.

• Nikon D80 Digital SLR + Sigma 18-200mm
• Focal Length: 135mm
• F-Number: F/6
• Exposure Time: 1/500 sec.
• ISO: 200
• Flash: None

If you want to follow along with the exact images I have used here, feel free to download the source files (10MB).

Now, I am sure some of you might be wondering why we need a whole tutorial on this when there are filters and actions available that can do what we want to do without all of the hassle.  You are right.  There are many filters that offer much of the same and they can even be downloaded at no charge. A great example is the “Tintype” action created by Dave Ward and available through Adobe Studio Exchange.

Very quickly you are able to reduce your photograph from vivid and colorful down to old and worn with a few mouse clicks.  The drawback to this method is that it is not easily customizable.  Sure, you could sift through some of the steps in the action set, make changes, and work on top of the final result, but you still have the same base effect and the more you use it, the more of a “template” or “processed” feeling it will have, removing the originality.  More importantly, learning the techniques to do it yourself opens the program up to be applied across other projects more readily. Don’t get me wrong, though.  I am not implying filters and actions are bad by any stretch of the imagination.  They should just be used as a portion of your process and not the process itself.

So let’s move on to our own process.  You can find free stock photos on Stock Exchange or the weekly free image on iStock Photo to work with.  For this image, I am using a free image from iStock Photo.  I have already brought the image into Photoshop, removed the original black background, tilted it at a slight angle, and added a subtle drop shadow.  In the original download, you will find the source files so that you make any changes before following along.  This provides us a decent foundation on which to work with without having to recreate any of the papers textured effects on our own.

With both images open, make sure the photograph is the active window.  Using the Move Tool, hold down the shift key and drag the photograph into the paper photo window.  Holding down shift while you drag the image brings it into the new image as a new layer and also centers it for you.  If you ever plan on coming back into this image and working it again, it is helpful to properly name and organize the layers and groups so that it is easy to make changes after you have forgotten what you originally did.  In the Photoshop file, you will see I have already created a group named “Paper” which contains the texture and drop shadow.  Create a new group above the Paper group and name it Image.  Move the layer with the color photo into this group and name it Color Photo.

To trim away the image that extends the boundaries of the paper group, select the Color Photo layer.  Holding the Control key, click on the Paper layer.  You will see the marching ants around the paper.  Promote this selection into a new layer by selecting Layer > New > New Layer via cut.  To keep things consistent, you will need to delete the Color Photo layer and rename the new layer (which is now Layer 1) to Color Photo.  You could have easily inverted the selection and pressed delete, which would have removed the excess image as well.  However, it didn’t remove the portion of the image that extended outside of the boundaries of the file size.  Meaning, if you had resized or move the image at all, you would see artifacts from the original image.  By promoting the selection into a new layer and deleting the previous layer, you are keeping only what you need to work with.

Now, we need to scale down the colors a bit so the image feels a bit more of a natural fit with the paper.  Duplicate the Color Photo layer by clicking on it and dragging it down to the “Create New Layer” icon in the Layers Palette.  The new layer will be named Color Photo.  The layer underneath it should be named B&W Photo.  Select the B&W Photo layer and convert it to black and white.  There are several ways to do this, however, the quickest method is to use the Desaturate option (Image > Adjustments > Desaturate).  After you have done this, change the blending mode for the B&W Photo layer to Multiply (with an opacity of 75%) and change the blending mode for the Color Photo layer to Soft Light (with an opacity of 40%).  This will mute the colors down enough to allow the texture to show through.

You should have something similar to what I have now.

Now, let’s experiment with some of the colors and change them up.  In the Paper group, create a new layer above the others and name it “Grass”.  Using the Polygonal Lasso tool, make a selection around the bottom of the image, selecting the grassy area.  Fill the selection with a bright green (I used a green with a hex value of # 00FF0C).  Change the blending mode to Multiply and drop the opacity down to 85%.  You can adjust the blending mode and opacity of the layer (as well as moving it above the actual images) to give you various results.

Since the original image was a little washed, let’s add some subtle clouds to the image.  In the download package you should have found a JPG named “Clouds.jpg”.  Open that image and Shift + drag it into our image.  Trim the excess baggage as we did in the previous steps and then name the layer Clouds.  Change the blending mode to Hard Light and drop the opacity down to 30%.  You should have something close to what I have:

How about that shack? 

Let’s change it up by adding some new tones of orange to it.  Create a new layer above the Grass layer and name it Shack.  With the Polygonal Lasso Tool, create a selection around the shack and fill it with a bright orange (I used a hex value of # F65312).  Trim away the excess orange, change the blending mode to Multiply and drop the opacity down to 40%.  Follow the same process for the trees using a darker green (I used a hex value of # 446903).  After cleaning up the area, change the blending mode to Overlay and drop the opacity down to 30%. 

You should have something similar to this image:

Next, a bit of stains and splatters will help with the defects and aging.  These effects are best added by using custom brushes.  For this tutorial, I have used coffee stain brushes created by Jelena Jovovi and watercolor brushes created by the fine folks at Bittbox.  All of these brushes are freely available and easy to install into Photoshop. 

Create a new group above the others and name it “Grunge”.  Using white as your foreground color, select the Brush Tool.  Select the custom brush you would like to use.

I really have no method behind the madness with regards to this step.  Trial and error, adjust the blending modes and opacities will be your best option.  For the coffee stain layer, I have a blending mode of Normal and opacity of 46%.  For the splatter layer I have the blending mode set to Soft Light with an opacity of 75%.

The last step is merely an accessory to the image.  This step involves forking out some money, however, which is why I listed it last rather than up front, in case you do not want to proceed any further with the tutorial.  You will need to purchase a vector pack from Go Media’s Arsenal.  You will need “Set 5 - Flock of Birds”, however, I highly recommend purchasing an entire collection as these vector packs are extremely useful in a wide array of projects.

The files are EPS files, which are meant more for Adobe Illustrator, but Adobe Photoshop will open them without any issue.  Select one of the flocks to bring into the image.  I selected the following flock to work with.

Shift-drag the bird image in and rename the layer to Birds.  Depending on how much you want the birds to stand out or blend in will be determined by your placement of this layer.  I added it to the Image Group above the other two layers in that group.  As you can see, they are a very sharp black and do not fit in at all with what we are doing.  To correct that, we need to size them down proportionately, unless of course gigantic birds are your thing.

Control-click the Birds layer to select it.  Setting your foreground color to a dark gray (I used a hex value of #303030), press Alternate + Backspace to fill the selection with the foreground color.  Next, press Control + T to use Free Transform, which will allow you to scale down the image.

If you hold the Shift key while transforming a layers scale, it will maintain the aspect ratio and keep everything in proportion.

Once you have the birds where you want them, drop the opacity of the layer down to 50% and change the blending mode to Multiply.  Apply a very subtle blur to the layer (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) using a Radius of 1.0 pixels.  With the toned down color, proportioned size, and slight blur, the flock so that it fits better with the overall mood of the image. 

One last tip, select some of the birds and reposition them.  One of my pet peeves is when resources are downloaded and inserted without any modification.  I try to make some adjustments or customization whenever possible so that it fits more with what I am doing and doesn’t have that “dropped in feeling”.  Moving the birds around will give this a more customized feeling and hopefully a bit more natural.