Realistic Old Photo

In this tutorial we'll see how to get a perfect old photo effect.

Open your photo.

Duplicate the background level and apply a Filter > Gaussian blur > Radius: 1px

Now go to Modify > Fade Gaussian Blur > Opacity: 50%

Repeat 5 times this step, and each time, set a double amount for the radius and a half amount for the fading action.

Finally, add an Adjustment layer > Brightness/Contrast and an Adjustment layer > Color Balance to correct a little the colour of your photo.

The next step is to transform our photo in a duotone photo.

Here is how to do.

Go to Layer > Flatten Image and then on Image > Mode > Grayscale to transform the image on a grayscale image.

Now go to Image > Mode > Duotone.

From the duotone window that will appear, click on: Load and then select: PANTONE(R) Duotones/mauve 4655 to 1.ado

For each color modify the "Duotone curve" as in the images:

Here is the result:

And now, the most important part of this tutorial, apply some "old" particulars.

For simplicity I write all the list of the filter to apply:

Create a new level and fill it with a 50% grey.

Apply these filters:

• Filter > Sketch > Graphic pen > StrokeLenght: 15 - Light/Dark balance: 3 - Stroke Direction: Vertical
• Filter > Render > Clouds
• Edit > Fade clouds > Opacity: 35% - Mode: Hard Light
• Filter > Blur > Motion Blur > Angle: -90% - Distance 999 pixels
• Filter > Other > Maximum > Radius: 1px
• Edit > Fade Maximum > Opacity: 50% - Mode: Normal
• Filter > Artistic > Film Grain > Grain: 0 - Highlight Area: 20 - Intensity: 10
• Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple > Ripple size: 1 - Ripple magnitude: 1
• Filter > Noise > Add noise > Amount: 5,50% - Gaussian - Monochromatic
• Filter > Render > Difference Clouds
• Edit > Fade difference clouds > Opacity: 30% - Mode: Screen
• Filter > Blur > Motion Blur > Angle: -90% - Distance 10 pixels
• Filter > Render > Clouds
• Edit > Fade clouds > Opacity: 10% - Mode: Screen
• Filter > Noise > Add noise > Amount: 5,50% - Gaussian - Monochromatic

Now set the layer mode to Multiply and set an amount to the opacity of the layer (you can choose how the amount should be).

Here is the final result: