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As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Copy and paste in this photo of a guitarist, resizing it to 600px width.

Duplicate this layer and go to filter>blur>gaussian blur. Apply a 3.5 strength gaussian blur and then change this layer’s opacity to 60%. This should nicely soften your image:


Now open your adjustments panel, and apply a color balance adjustment layer (settings below):


Now apply a second adjustment layer (photo filter) – see the settings below:

Now paste in this great paper texture.
Go to image>adjustments>desaturate to grayscale it, and then apply the levels settings shown below:


Reduce your paper texture layer’s opacity to 10%:

Create a new layer called ‘image border’. Then fill this with whatever color you want. In your layer’s palette reduce this layer’s FILL opacity to 0%, leaving it’s main opacity at 100%. This means that your color used to fill your canvas will not be visible, but any blending options and layer styles will be!
Then apply a 10px stroke (position: inner), opacity: 20%, to create a nice border to your image:


Create a new layer called ‘radial gradients’. Use your radial gradient tool (ranging from various bright colors to transparent) and create some highlights over your image (see below):
Then change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and reduce it’s opacity to 15%:


Create a new layer called ‘white bar’. Using your marquee tool or rectangle shape tool create a white bar spanning across the bottom of your image.
Then reduce this layer’s FILL opacity to 50%.
Go to blending options and apply a 1px white stroke effect. This should create a nice subtle area to place text:


Now add some text over your bar area. I chose to apply a very high kerning setting to space my text out nicely.
Then I added a black outer glow blending option to my white text to add some subtle emphasis to it:


You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome:


Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.
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Very nice effect
This is good blog message, I will keep this in mind. If you add more video and pictures because it helps understanding
thx, I like it. Yours tutorials are usefull.
Great tutorial and a really nice vintage effect. I always like to learn new techniques to make images and photos more interesting. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Not looking vintage:(
Nice tutorial, I will use this technique for sure in my upcoming tutorial =]. Thanks for sharing
could anyone tell how to get those options, vat i have to download to change settings.
it’s really amazing
Very nice effect Thank you