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MEET THE AUTHOR Eric Z Goodnight is an Illustrator and Graphics Geek that hopes to make Photoshop more accessible to How To Geek readers. When hes not headbanging to heavy metal or geeking out over manga, hes often off screen printing T-Shirts. Follow Eric Z Goodnight on Tw itter

Youve probably seen lots of vintage photo effects, or maybe even made some of your own using software like Instagram. Today well look at a few vintage effects and see how they can be replicated in either GIMP or Photoshop. Vintage effects like Instagram are simple, and can be approximated or reverse engineered quite easily if you know how. Well take a look at how even free software like the GIMP can replicate effects of iPhone photographers and pros alike.

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In case you hadnt seen them already, Gizmodo has blogged about the very excellent Photoshop Action set by Daniel Box. Great as they are, Daniel was far from the first photographer to offer vintage style photo effects packaged as PS actions. A few quick searches on Vintage Photo Photoshop Actions will bring you loads and loads of gorgeous, easy to use actions that will instantly transform a photograph. If youve never used Photoshop Actions before, theyre like little programs you can create in Photoshop to save, load, and share. But for those of us that cant use Photoshop Actions (or want to create out own unique photo effects) theres always the manual method.

Manually Creating The Nashville Effect

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Lets recreate one of these effects in Photoshop or GIMP, using similar tools either program can handle. Find an image youd like to play with, and fire up either image editor. Save an alternate copy of your image so that you can revert at any time you need to.

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Create a new Layer and fill it with a pale yellow color, then set that layers blending mode to multiply.

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You can use a color similar to this RGB recipe, if you prefer. The RGB recipe of 250, 220, 175 and the hex #fadcaf will both recreate a similar color in either program. (Authors note: Changing this color can definitely affect your final resultso experiment with it!)

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Jump back to your background layer. Were going to make three quick adjustments to the background. First, adjust the central slider bar, moving it over toward the left side of the histogram. You should be adjusting in all three channels of your RGB. To open Levels, Press Ctrl + L in Photoshop, or navigate to Colors > Levels in GIMP.

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Then, change levels to work in the Green channel, and adjust the output levels by moving them closer to the right side of the screen. Be certain to do this in the Green channel, and not any other, or the RGB channel.

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Change your levels to adjust the Blue channel, and dramatically adjust the Output Levels slider. Once youve done all three of these, you can press OK.

With only those few steps, a photo can be dramatically transformed. You can always go further, but this is a fine vintage look in and of itself.

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Vintage photo effects sometimes try to destroy detail, such as the flattened blacks and highlights to simulate bad prints or aged photo papers. Additional adjustments to levels can add to this effect, but are not necessary.

Manually Creating the Lord Kelvin Effect

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Lets do one more of the Instagram effects, this time one similar to Lord Kelvin. Start with another image, and this time, were going to make some adjustments to the curves. If youre unfamiliar with the curves tool, read about how they can help you adjust contrast like a pro. Remember to save an alternate copy of your image before you start working!

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Open curves in Photoshop by pressing Ctrl + M. In GIMP, Navigate to Colors > Curves. Were going to be adjusting the curves of each channel separately. For the Red channel, create a curve similar to this one. Note that the leftmost point is raised up off the bottom of the curves box.

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Now lets adjust the Green channel. Again, raise the leftmost point, curve the line slightly with the midpoint shown above, and lower the rightmost point and bring it in, so that the line plateaus on the right.

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Finally, adjust the Blue chanel. Its bizarre and radical compared to the last two channel adjustments. Raise the leftmost point up fairly high, and drop the rightmost point inward and downward as shown. Then bow the line slightly downward, and press OK. (Authors note: You can use whatever values you want for any of these three adjustments. These are values similar to the ones Daniel Box uses to replicate Instagram, but theres no single way to create a vintage effect. Change it to your liking and make a crazy vintage effect of your own, if you like!)

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You can create additional subtle changes in levels or curves to tweak your image to your liking. Both tools are equally useful, but give you control over subtly different parts of the image. Play with both of them, and create the effect that works the best for you.

Have questions or comments concerning Graphics, Photos, Filetypes, or Photoshop? Send your questions to ericgoodnight@howtogeek.com, and they may be featured in a future How-To Geek Graphics article. Image Credits: Friends by Alireza Teimoury, available under Creative Commons. Chinese New Year by Brian Yap (), available under Creative Commons.
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By Eric Z Goodnight on 07/20/11

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Comments (12)
July 20, 2011 8:20 am

jon_hill987

I never got this. Camera companies spent millions getting better and better colour replication, why would anyone want to emulate inferior photography techniques?

Eric Z Goodnight

July 20, 2011 9:05 am

I more or less agree, although many pros create effects similar to these. After browsing for a while on 500px.com I came to understand these kinds of effects are really popular. My point with this is just to show people the method behind the effect is actually very simple.

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ceeluk

July 21, 2011 1:24 am

@Jon I was thinking the same thing reading the through this.

Joebloe

July 21, 2011 6:45 am

The beauty of digital is that you can usethe better colour replication if you like, but you can also alter any image to your liking in millions of different ways that you couldnt do with film. As long as you work on copies of your originals, go for it.

Hatryst

July 21, 2011 3:57 pm

Ive been using these actions, but didnt know whats going in the background. Thanks for the information ;)

Troy

July 21, 2011 10:11 pm

Now I dont need to wait for the graphic artist to come Back from their 2 hour lunch. I can do this simple effect with no problem now. But now I understand the basics of curves And channels! Thanks !

PBDoetMee

July 22, 2011 4:24 am

@jon_hill987 Thats simple: these plugs bring back the sense of nostalgics, warmth in photos, which was killed by the new digital techniques. Thatss all. And: you do not HAVE to use them ;-)

abdi

July 23, 2011 7:36 am


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Cool! :)

olatundun bolaji

July 27, 2011 5:37 am

How i am going to install it on my phone.

Martin

September 15, 2011 3:12 pm

@jon why would anyone want to emulate inferior photography techniques? Its called Art. Its called Style. Its called BECAUSE I CAN. Why would anyone use a 1968 Fastback mustang anyway

Lissa

October 2, 2011 9:05 pm

Theres a plug-in that i think just came out. It does what Hipstamatic and Instagram do. http://www.misterretro.com/filters/retrographer

Ashley Pomeroy

October 10, 2011 12:26 pm

$99, so I think Ill pass. This kind of thing is fascinating using new technology to emulate old flaws and I remember when I started out with a digital camera I used to paste over the messy film edges you get rom uncropped prints as a mock frame. It does tend to foster a syndrome whereby people process every photograph they take, whether its a shot of a rusty old car or a brand-new toy, or the kids etc, even if the results look incongruous. You know, theres going to be a generation to come who will look back at the childhood snapshots their parents took, which will be pristine digital copies of photographs that were processed to look faded and worn with Instagram. And there will be a divide by zero error and the world will end.
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