Old Film Effect

In this tutorial you will learn how to give any photo a haunting analogue film appearance.

Let’s start with a film texture that can be downloaded here.

Open the file in Photoshop and go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate.

Next we’ll need a photo. Choose any photo, don’t worry if it is dark like the one above.

Place it on top of your film texture and resize it so it fits inside the borders.

Use the marquee tool to select areas that overlap the film texture and delete them.

You can reduce the opacity of the photo layer to have a better view of what to delete.

Now desaturate your photo.

Next go t0 Image>Adjustments>Curves.

Click on the black colour picker button then use the picker tool to choose where you want your photo to be darkest. I chose a dark shadow area on one of the buildings.

Then click on the white colour picker button, and choose where you want the lightest part to be, like the sky.

Now copy your photo layer.

With your copied layer selected, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set it to 20 pixels, then click OK.

Next give the copied layer a layer mask by selecting it, then clicking on the layer mask button.

With the layer mask selected, click on the gradient tool and use the settings shown above.

Click on the centre of the photo, then again at the edge to create a gradient.

The gradient will have masked out the centre of the blurred layer, revealing the original layer beneath.

Now click on the adjustment layer button and choose Solid Color.

Type in 2b2b25 and click OK.

Now change this solid color layer’s blending mode to Lighten and it’s opacity to 75%.

Now add another Solid Color layer and use the colour ddd6bf.

Change it’s blending mode to Overlay and it’s opacity to 25%.

This will have given your photo a sepia look.

Next we will add a vignette by creating a black gradient.

Click on the adjustment layer button and select Gradient Fill, then apply the settings shown above.

Change the Gradient layer’s blending mode to Soft Light.

And now we will add some noise to the image. Create a new layer above all the others and use the paint bucket tool to fill it with a mid-grey colour.

Next go Filter>Noise>Add noise, leave it at 100% and click OK.

Then go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, and put the Radius at 1.0 pixels.

Change this layer’s blending mode to Overlay and it’s opacity to 15%.

You can also rotate and crop the image too add to the effect.

Finally flatten your image and give it a Gaussian Blur set to around 1.5 pixels.

Your layers panel should end up looking like this.

And here is the final outcome.

Thanks for reading!