written by: Andrew Houle / stashed in: Tutorials / 06.23.08
I love anything graphic design that has that vintage grunge kind of look. This tutorial will show you how to create a stunning vintage polaroid effect. It’s fairly simple to make and can be used in many different types of projects.
What you’ll need
This tutorial will be completed using mostly filters and fills, but we will need three photos to complete the look. The first is the tractor image we’ll fill in the polaroid with, if you have an image you’d like to substitute, by all means use that. Also in the zipped file are two grunge textures. Download them all here. Note that the photo was one I found at stock.xchg, an awesome free stock photography site, that is nearly as good as IStock (but it’s FREE!) I found the textures at grungetextures.com, another useful and free site.
Onwards, to the tutorial
- Start by creating a new document in photoshop to the specs you like, I used 500px by 500px.
- Grab the gradient tool (shortcut ‘g’ on the keyboard), set gradient type to radial gradient. Double click the edit gradient thumbnail to bring up the gradient editor.
- Within the gradient editor set the first color stop to a nice brown (I used #6e5f3a) and set the second color stop to a darker brown (I used #171613). Click OK.
- With the gradient tool still selected click somewhere in the middle and drag out to a corner, until you have a nice brown radial gradient.
- We are going to add more texture and interest to our background. Click filter->texture->texturizer. Choose canvas for the texture, 61% for the scaling, 2 for the relief, and top left for the light.
- Open up the cardboard texture you downloaded earlier. Grab the move tool (shortcut ‘v’ on the keyboard). Click and drag the cardboard texture onto your vintage polaroid document. When you release the mouse button it will drop the cardboard texture on the top layer. Rename that layer ‘Grunge 1′.
- Hit ‘ctrl, t’ to bring up the free transform tool and resize your grunge1 layer to something smaller that just covers your document, hit ‘enter’.
- Change the layer mode to multiply and the opacity to 65%.
- Place the paper grunge texture on the top layer, just like the steps above, name this layer ‘Grunge 2′. Hit ‘ctrl, t’ and resize it. Change the layer mode to multiply and the opacity to 50%. That should do it for our background, it should look something like the image below.
- Create a new layer, name in ‘Polaroid Border’
- Grab the rectangle marquee tool (shortcut ‘m’ on the keyboard) and drag out a rectangle in the center of the document at the size you want your polaroid to be.
- Set the foreground color to white (#ffffff) and the background color to #bbbbbb.
- Click filter->render->clouds. This will fill our selection with grayish clouds.
- Add some noise. Click filter->noise->add noise. Change the amount to 1.3%, the distribution to gaussian and make sure monocromatic is checked. Click OK.
- One last filter to help with the look. Click filter->brush strokes->crosshatch. Change the sliders to as follows: stroke length 9, sharpness 6, strength 1. Click OK
- Let’s add some of that vintage brown color back into the polaroid. Click image->adjustments->hue/saturation. Change the settings to: Hue 33, Saturation 30, Brightness +32.
- Double click to the right of the layer name (’Polaroid Border’) to bring up the layer styles window. Click to add a drop shadow and change the distance to 4 and the size to 4. Keep everything else the same.
- Within the same layer styles window click to add a stroke. Change the width to 1px, and the fill type to pattern and choose the pattern shown below. This will give is a nice tattered edge.
- Create a new layer at the top and name it ‘Polaroid BG’.
- Grab the marquee tool and select a rectangle within the polaroid border like below.
- Set your background color to black and hit ‘ctrl, backspace’ on the keyboard to fill your selection with black.
- Open up the tractor photo you downloaded in the beginning of this tutorial and drag it onto the top layer of your vintage polaroid document. Call this layer ‘Tractor’.
- Hit ‘ctrl, t’ to bring up the free transform tool again and resize the tractor photo to about the same size as the black fill, leave a little overlap on each side. Like below.
- Now select the ‘Polaroid BG’ layer by holding down ‘ctrl’ and clicking on the image thumbnail on the layer.
- Click shift, ctrl, i to select the inverse. Click back to the ‘Tractor’ layer and click ctrl, x to cut out the pixels that are past the border.
- Double click to the right of the ‘Tractor’ layer name to bring up the layer styles box once again. Click to add an inner shadow. Change the opacity to 57%, the distance to 2px, the size to 3px and the noise to 10%.
- Within the layer style window also add a stroke just like the one on the ‘Polaroid Border’ layer. 1px, and the same pattern.
- OK, we are getting there, now we need to desaturate our photo a little bit to keep with our vintage theme. Click image->adjustments->hue/saturation. Change the hue to 32, the saturation to 30 and the brightness to -7.
- Highlight the three polaroid layers by clicking on ‘Tractor’ holding down shift and clicking on ‘Polaroid Border’. Now right click anywhere along the three highlighted layer and choose Link Layers.
- Bring up the free transform tool (ctrl, t) and rotate the image to the right a little. To rotate the image hover your curser over the top right corner until you get the double arrow with the arch then click and drag.
- That effect looks awesome already, I just added a couple more finishing touches. First let’s add two more pictures behind that one. Click and drag your three highlighted layers to the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette.
- Click and drag the copied three polaroid layers below the originals. Right click anywhere along the three copied and highlighted layers. In the options that appear, click Merge Layers.
- ‘Hit ‘ctrl, t’ on the ‘Tractor copy’ layer and rotate it to the left.
- Click image->adjustments->levels and drag the black slider and the midtone slider to the right to darken the background polaroid slightly to give it some depth.
- Repeat the above steps to add a third polaroid at the bottom. Until you have something that looks like this.
- If you’d like to add some text to the bottom, that’s a nice touch as well. I used a font called brisa alternates, but any sort of handwritten font should do the trick. I also converted the text to a smart object. Added a layer mask, and used a grunge brush to brush out some of the text to have it fit in with the rest of the image. Here’s my final image.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did creating it! Let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions, or come up with an interesting variation. Drop me a comment below, or send an email to info@myinkblog.com.
About the Author
Andrew is the originator and primary contributer for this blog. He is a web and graphic designer with a passion for helping aspiring designers develop their skills.
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June 25, 2008
Nice work!
June 25, 2008
Very nice tutorial. Thank you!
June 25, 2008
Thank you for the encouraging words! I love getting good feedback!
June 26, 2008
really good work there! great atmosphere !
June 26, 2008
polaroids are nice.so is this tutorial.
June 27, 2008
Wow! what a great tutorial…I am a beginner photoshopper and this tutorial was detailed enough for me to achieve your look! I love the look! Thanks!
June 27, 2008
Thanks for this very informative tutorial. How do you convert text into smart object and complete the last typing part. Thanks
June 27, 2008
Hi Hugh,
I’m glad you liked the tutorial. To complete the last step, right click on the text layer you created, choose ‘convert to smart object’ from the list of options. Click on the add layer mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Change your foreground color to black. Grab a grunge brush or something with rough and random edges. Lower the opacity of the brush a bit and paint over the letters on the layer mask you created.
June 27, 2008
Great tutorial! I’m not a beginner, but I’ve still learnt a lot from it. Thanks!
June 27, 2008
I owe you such a big Thank You! I lost my motivation for Photoshop a while ago and I’ve been trying to get it back somehow… and then I stumbled upon this tutorial. It’s reallllly well detailed and made and I just love it. Again, thank you sooo much and hope to see more tutorials by you in the future! :]
July 27, 2008
Very nice tutorial. Very easy to follow.
July 30, 2008
cool !!!!
July 31, 2008
cool effect, nice choice of photo for the summer sun
August 3, 2008
very nice, i like it. thank you for posting this!
August 23, 2008
Very nice, this could be pretty handy for something different in albums for weddings and things along those lines.
Matt’s last post was… Big Cartel, all your art and cool merch
September 1, 2008
VERY VERY GOOD WORK!!!!!
Well written tut. great detail and a very solid and GREAT project.
Thanks
September 3, 2008
nice tutorial and end product, but there’s an easier way… it’s called “sepia.”
September 3, 2008
@Sophia Certainly, using the sepia option is another way to go, although I’m not sure it’s any easier :) Photoshop is awesome for having so many different ways to achieve the same thing. If you want to try that, instead of changing the Hue/Saturation, just go Image->Adjustments->Photo Filter->Sepia. I like using this filter, but I think you have more flexibility using Hue/Saturation.
September 3, 2008
i love the tutorials.. this is my first week learning adobe photoshop and i cant believe that i made such an artwork like this..
you rock dude! \m/
September 8, 2008
Very Clean… Nice Work!
September 11, 2008
Nice tutorial – will be having a go at this myself…
October 15, 2008
GOOD WORK
REALLY GOOD WORK =)
October 16, 2008
awesome
October 16, 2008
I like…very nice !
John Murko´s last post was… Silence, on censure chez Blogger !!!
October 19, 2008
Great tutorial Andrew!
Thanks for linking to http://www.grungetextures.com. I appreciate you mentioning my site and I’m glad you found the cardboard texture helpful. I’ve posted a linkback to this tutorial on my blog. Keep up the good work ;-)
Darren Hester´s last post was… Stone Wall Pattern
October 20, 2008
@Darren Thanks so much! I really appreciate the link back and the awesome textures your site provides :)
December 7, 2008
Great! I love tutorials like that. Thanks for this great work!
By the way, in my opinion the polaroid is the finest camera at all. I buyed a 600 model now and I don’t know whether $16 is too much for a 600 film single pack. I’ve seen it on http://www.polaroid24.int.tc …can someone tell me?
December 18, 2008
Very nice tutorial. I am a beginner photoshopper && this was very detailed for me. Thanks.
:)
December 25, 2008
Hi there!!!
I do phot to canvas prints and many times i am asked to do photo montages
This will be a great adition to my catalogue of effects, many thanks and great tut!!!!
Dave
January 7, 2009
This was an amazing tutorial this is what i came out with Here
I wanna say thank you
January 7, 2009
@Roshnee Awesome result, thanks so much for sharing!
January 10, 2009
That was a really detailed tutorial; thanks so much.
Cigdem´s last post was… Lighten up!
January 12, 2009
Amazing brother, thank you.
:D
January 14, 2009
very nice
January 14, 2009
Thank you!
January 15, 2009
Thanks! This is great!
January 17, 2009
Great tutorial!! I’m a novice and had no trouble following this. I love the look – it was exactly what I wanted to achieve! I greatly appreciate the links you provided for free stock photos and the zip file of the exact resources you used. Too many tutorials tell you to find the files on a certain site but they’ve since disappeared or the tutorial doesn’t provide the right file name, etc. It’s a huge relief to find this tutorial and your site! I used this tutorial to create a family photo montage for a family event and everyone loved it – thanks so much!
January 31, 2009
Hi! I’m from Russia. I would like to thank you for this tutorial. Great!!! Thats really good staff. My respect!
February 1, 2009
Hello. And Bye. :)
February 4, 2009
Thanks a lot Author, it added knowledge.
Keep up!
Denzil Jr.´s last post was… Cute
February 4, 2009
I can’t get the rough edges. When i put the stroke and pattern on all it show is the pattern not the rough edges. ????????????????????
February 4, 2009
@Joel Does the pattern cover the whole thing or just the edges. Are you sure the stroke is set to 1 and you are picking the same pattern that’s shown. If all those things check out, then you are more than welcome to email me the psd file so I could take a look. Send it to info@myinkblog.com
February 6, 2009
Great Tutorial! I love it… Thank you.
March 4, 2009
I have been looking for a good way to do this, thanks so much.
March 13, 2009
if u wanna to make such effect simple and instantly try doing it online. I found one such tool at http://ankitjain.info/tools/polaroid/
March 14, 2009
thanks for that m8!
March 27, 2009
Wow, easy instructions to follow! Great Job!!
March 29, 2009
Great effect thanks
April 11, 2009
That’s great! I am not good at all these things but this tutorial was easy to follow. I love to do something with my pics and this was very helpful indeed!
Thanks a lot!!!
April 13, 2009
oh gosh. awesome!! thx thx thx >.<
ChaCha´s last post was… Best Looks From Milan – Fall 09
April 13, 2009
The effect is amazing, your tutorial’s awesome, and so is your love for details. Plus, no convenient short cuts, so one can try & tweak every step of the way. Even a photoshop rookie like me can do it! Thanks a lot, Andrew. Great work.
gyokusai´s last post was… gyokusai: Japanese Bandai Magic 8-Ball God-Jesus Toy Robot from the ’80s. ROFL! You can’t make this up. http://is.gd/s90Z (thx BB)
April 13, 2009
I have CS2 Photoshop
I tried to do this, followed you to the letter but some of the steps wouldn’t “take”… I couldn’t get the bevelled edges and the saturation/hue wouldnt take…
April 13, 2009
sorted most of it out BUT couldnt link the layers using click shift click… is it my version CS2 or something else I am doing wrong?
April 14, 2009
@tracey – Are both the layers highlighted? Make sure they both are, then click ‘Layers->Link Layers’
April 15, 2009
stock.xchg isn’t free
April 15, 2009
@Cate When you do a search at stock.xchg the first row are premium results, but all the rows after that are free.
April 17, 2009
Really nice tutorial ! But this -> Open up the cardboard texture you downloaded earlier. Grab the move tool (shortcut ‘v’ on the keyboard). Click and drag the cardboard texture onto your vintage polaroid document. When you release the mouse button it will drop the cardboard texture on the top layer. Rename that layer ‘Grunge 1′.
Doesnt work for me, the texture opens in another window, it doesnt drop on the top layer. Hope you can help me out !
April 22, 2009
Hello, i realy enjoy this tutorial, but when i tried to do it i had a problem. I hope you understand everything i’am saying, ’cause i’am brazilian!
When you told us to create a rectangle und paint that white und #bbbbbb, I didn’t know HOW to do it. I tried and it became always transparent!
Help if u can. Thanks
April 22, 2009
@leticia – Which step are you referring to?
April 23, 2009
A bit long but well worth the wait!
April 25, 2009
Thanks a bunch man, excellent tutorial!
May 3, 2009
Thanks this made it so easy to follow. Very cool effect!
May 7, 2009
Did you design this template?
May 7, 2009
@Old Tractors for Sale – Not sure if this is what you are asking, but I designed the tutorial from scratch using Photoshop.
May 22, 2009
Very good tutorial! Thanks!
May 26, 2009
Thanks for the great Help, i got new ideas about photo shop designing…
Thanks a lot !!!!!
June 11, 2009
This was so fun and really made PS a lot less unapproachable to me. Thank you!