A photo you shot today can look like it was taken in the 1890s with CS3 effects.
Modern photography, whether still or motion, tends to focus upon crisp, sharp and clear color images. Those always were the goals of photographers and cinematographers, but in days past, their efforts sometimes were stymied by the equipment and film stock they had available. The unintentional photographic effects caused by this vintage film and equipment have become classic and and desirable. Here are some starting points for getting your own vintage effects when you use Adobe Photoshop CS3 on your Apple Macintosh computer.
Sepia Toning
Photographers started sepia toning their images in the 1800s as a way to make the photos more stable and less prone to fading. This brownish-red effect has become synonymous with old-fashioned photography. Most of the images that made Ken Burns' documentary "The Civil War" so dramatic were sepia toned. It is a simple process in CS3. After you have toned and sized your image, go to the "Image" menu, move to "Adjustments" and choose "Desaturate." This turns the photo into grayscale. Then go to "Adjustments" and then "Variations" for the sepia effect. Click on the "More Red" selection and the "More Yellow" box, once each. This should produce a workable sepia-toned photo every time. You also can use the "Actions" palette under the "Window" menu and select the "Sepia Toning (Layer)" choice.
Grain
Most old film, especially those types used in low light, produced a lot of graininess in the photos. Photographers fought for years to get rid of this, especially in black and white images, and finally Kodak and other companies solved the problem. Now, you can get back the graininess for a vintage effect with a preset available in CS3. You can do this with both color and black and white images, but it looks better with black and white. "Desaturate" your image if it is color so it becomes grayscale. Go to the "Filter" menu and select "Artistic" and then "Film Grain." In the pop-up "Filter Gallery" window that appears, you can adjust the graininess with the "Grain" slider control and also use the "Highlight" and "Intensity" controls to tweak the effect. For example, if you increase "Intensity" slightly, you will get a look similar to photos printed in newspapers in the 1940s. You also can use the "Filter" called "Grain," located under "Texture" in the "Filter Gallery," for different controls.
Projector Marks
If you would like your photo to look like a frame from an old movie that has been through the projector too many times, go to "Filter" and then "Texture," followed by "Grain." Use the scroll button next to "Grain Type" and select "Vertical." This simulates rough streaks as if the film frame has been damaged by multiple runs through a projector. This effect works better, too, if you "Desaturate" your photo first.
Halftone
In years past, halftone was the format that photos had to be in for publication in newspapers and magazines. Essentially, the photo was broken down into dots to create the varying degrees of black, white and gray needed to reproduce the image on a printing press. You can get this same look with another preset "Filter" in CS3 on your Mac. Go to "Filter" and "Sketch" and select "Halftone Pattern." You can control how big the dots are with "Size," as well as the balance of black to white with "Contrast." The scroll button next to "Pattern Type" can give you a TV effect with either "Circle" or "Line," or a more traditional newspaper effect with "Dot."
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