Old, Cracked Photo Effect

Quick reference

• 00:03 As we further progress into the Instagram era, where old is new,
• 00:06 many users are looking to send their pictures back in time
• 00:10 and give them a retro look. Let's take a look at how you can
• 00:14 transform your images into ancient artwork.
• 00:14 Starting off very simple, we need to convert our image to a
• 00:19 black and white photo.
• 00:21 Because I love working non-destructively, let's go ahead and add a black and
• 00:25 white adjustment layer
• 00:26 by clicking on the adjustment layer icon in your Layers panel,
• 00:29 and then selecting ‘black and white’. Using adjustment layers allows you to edit the
• 00:33 adjustment at a later point if needed.
• 00:35 Now that the photo is stripped of its color, we need to wash it out a bit.
• 00:40 Older cameras were not able to capture all the tone that today's cameras are
• 00:43 capable of,
• 00:44 so we need to drop the contrast for photo.
• 00:48 Again, using an adjustment layer, brightness and contrast will do the trick.
• 00:51 However, if you're using a fairly new version of Photoshop
• 00:54 simply decreasing the contrast will not work that well, as the adjustment has been
• 00:58 changed in recent years.
• 00:59 You want to make sure to activate the ‘legacy’ option,
• 01:03 and then decrease the contrast until you have nice a subtle washed over look to your
• 01:06 photo.
• 01:07 Good. The next element we're going to add will act as faded spots you might see
• 01:12 in some older photos.
• 01:13 Start by creating a new layer using the icon in your Layers panel,
• 01:16 or with a Command or Control Shift and ‘N’ shortcut.
• 01:19 With your color set to Black and White (which can be achieved by pressing
• 01:23 the ‘D’ key on your keyboard),
• 01:25 head up to the Filter menu, down to ‘render’, and then ‘clouds’.
• 01:28 The clouds that you will be presented with will most likely contain too much white,
• 01:32 so we want to remove a good portion of that using your Command or Control
• 01:36 ’L’ shortcut to access your levels adjustment. Pull the Midtown slider to
• 01:40 the right
• 01:41 in order to pull in additional dark tones, which will help with our blending.
• 01:44 Once that's done, in your Layers panel, change the blend mode of this layer to
• 01:48 ’Color Dodge’
• 01:49 and then decrease the opacity to around 20 percent. That should leave you with
• 01:53 very subtle white spots on your image.
• 01:55 Now we come to the cracks. Every old photo needs a few creases and cracks.
• 02:00 While these could be created completely in Photoshop using a texture may give
• 02:04 you better results.
• 02:05 So over at CGtextures.com, I found this nice texture that contains white
• 02:10 cracks.
• 02:10 Making sure your cracks are white is very important - you'll see why in a
• 02:14 moment.
• 02:15 With the texture open in Photoshop I can drag right over to the document I'm
• 02:18 working on and move it in place.
• 02:19 When you have it where you want it double click on its
• 02:23 layer in the Layers panel to bring up the blending options.
• 02:25 Take a look at the ‘blend if’ section at the bottom. This will allow us to
• 02:29 blend away the darker areas and the texture,
• 02:32 leaving only the white cracks. ‘Blend if’ contains two bars:
• 02:36 one for the current layer that you have active, and one for the layer below it.
• 02:40 Because we're looking to blend the areas of the active layer
• 02:43 we're only going to focus on the top bar. Now, as we want to remove the darker
• 02:47 tones,
• 02:48 dragging the shadow slider to the right will start to exclude them from our
• 02:51 texture.
• 02:52 But as you drag along, the results are looking very harsh.
• 02:55 Here's a neat tip: holding down your ALT key in Windows,
• 02:58 Option key on the Mac, you can split the slider to create a much smoother blend,
• 03:03 which should leave you with only the cracks visible and maybe a touch of gray,
• 03:06 which is fine.
• 03:07 Once you're happy with the blend, change the blend mode of the layer to
• 03:10 ’vivid light’ and then decreased opacity until you're happy with the result.
• 03:14 The crack should be nice and subtle, nothing over-dramatic.
• 03:17 We're almost finished. At this point, we're going to go back and edit our
• 03:20 original image.
• 03:21 First, by adding a little bit of noise. With your photo selected in your Layers
• 03:25 panel,
• 03:26 make sure you convert your layer for Smart Filters under the filter menu at
• 03:29 the top.
• 03:30 Like adjustment layers, this ensure you can make changes later on.
• 03:33 Once converted, head back up to the filter menu, down to ‘Noise’
• 03:36 and then ‘Add Noise’. You want to add a nice subtle amount of noise, just enough
• 03:41 so you can tell that there's noise.
• 03:42 Somewhere around 10 percent for this photo should work well.
• 03:46 Now that we have a little bit of noise,
• 03:47 let's add one more affect. Double-clicking on your main photo to
• 03:50 bring up the layer styles,
• 03:51 let's add an inner shadow to rough up the edges, change the blend mode to ‘Color
• 03:56 Burn’,
• 03:56 and decrease your opacity to around 65 percent
• 04:00 Set the distance at zero, and then crank the size up until you're happy with the
• 04:04 way the edges are looking.
• 04:05 And that'll complete it. From here you can easily make additional changes if
• 04:09 necessary.
• 04:09 This is why stress working with adjustment layers. I can easily select
• 04:13 the black-and-white adjustment
• 04:14 and add a tint if I want to, or I can change the blend mode on the adjustment layer
• 04:18 to hard light:
• 04:18 adding a splash of color back into the photo while still keeping it retro.

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