These faded film effects are popular with many wedding and portrait photographers. They work great on high-contrast photos and they’re useful whenever your clients want the the retro/film look.

With the right effect, you can change the mood of your photo. Although the faded film can look drastic, they’re actually created with only 1-2 adjustment layers to give you the maximum dynamic range and image quality.

These faded actions can be used to make your photos more nostalgic. We found some of the light leaks to be too strong but you can reduce the opacity of it or reposition the light leak.

Faded film effects are commonly used for logos, quotes, or inspirational messages because it has a low-contrast effect that makes any white or black text stand out.

Video Demonstration

The Photoshop actions used in the video is the premium version which you can download if you’re a SparkleStock member.

Download the Photoshop Actions

Tutorial Details

• Program: Adobe Photoshop
• Version: CS6
• Difficulty: Advanced
• Estimated Completion Time: 10 Hours

Tutorial Assets

• Image 1
• Image 2
• Image 3
• Image 4
• Image 5
• Image 6
• Brush File

1.Base sketch

Step 1

Lets open up our image and crop it to about what is shown here, then create a new layer on top.

Step 2

Select the brush shown here and setup the transfer and pen pressure in the brush palette as shown. Then just sample dark color from the image and start blocking in the areas and shapes of the-sections we will be messing up.

Step 3

Do the same work on the shoulder and hand as shown here. Next sample lighter color from the skin.

Step 4

Reduce the brush size a bit and start painting in where we think the flesh its ripping apart.

Step 5

Then change the sample color to some pinkish top flesh like the tongue here and add to the previous strokes as shown here.

Step 6

Continue adding flesh as shown here, remember we are sketching and planning how and where the pieces of flesh are ripped off; where do they go and how are they still attached. Next sample a darker color from the mouth and paint in to support the other strokes. Similar to the mouth the top layer of skin is lighter and as you go deeper into the flesh its more dark blood red.

Step 7

Now sampling color from the teeth we can start defining what will be exposed bone and teeth sections.

Step 8

Then we continue to find all the sharp edges and give the same treatment so the flesh has some thickness.

Step 9

Also sketch a little bit around the eye so we know the area needed to take space for it.

Step 10

And then touch to add the flesh in front of the eye.

Step 11

As we said previously we need to keep the top skin on top for the rest to make sense so touch up accordingly as show.

Step 12

At this point I decided to clear the eye section a bit so we could later see a bit more of it.

Step 13

Then to suggest a limit to the depth of the skin and flesh we need to paint in some hint of bone bellow all this mess; so sample some color as shown here and paint in some bone back there as shown here.

Step 14

OK great! at this stage we need to cover with the same sketching for the rest on the shoulder and hand. And that is it for this stage we should have all of our plan and sketch in place.

If you want the most filters in the world, Filter Forge will please you. Their website gives you access to 9000+ filters but most of them are very specific and there are many variations of similar effects. I didn’t like the idea of browsing a website to download filters because the first thing that comes to mind is the hassle of saving/loading the filters. Thankfully, it’s nothing like that. You still need to browse the website for the filters but the filters load automatically into Filter Forge when you click the open link.

 
Filters load straight into Filter Forge

Here’s an example of a filter that converts your photo into a watercolor painting. It’s one of the more basic examples of what you can do with Filter Forge but their gallery page has some amazing examples of what other people have created by combining multiple filters.

Create Your Own Filters

Want to create your own filters without any coding experience? You can do that using the easy-to-use drag-&-drop editor. This editor is only in the standard and professional edition and it’s worth the upgrade if you’re willing to put some effort into learning how to use the Filter Editor. The editor gives you a wealth of components you can mix and match to create your own filters.

Here’s an example of a simple filter created in Filter Forge. It uses the Tiles component in Filter Forge to pixelate the photo with circles and creating it only took a few minutes. Once you’re done creating the filter, you can save it and publish it on the Filter Forge website for others to use. Depending on how popular your filter is, you may be rewarded with a free copy of Filter Forge.

Here’s what the filter looks like:

There is a considerable learning curve with the editor but if you start from simple filters and work your way to creating more complicated ones, you’ll be able to create filters just as advanced as the ones you see on the website. I’ve been using Filter Forge for almost a year and over time you get better at creating filters. When I first started, I stuck with simple ones like the ones above. Over time, you will learn how to create more advance filters and how to optimize them so that they are efficient and render quicker. Here’s a grunge bokeh wallpaper filter that I made. Photo effect filters are the easiest to create. For texture filters, the professional version lets you create 3D textures with bump maps and lighting effects.

Conclusion

Filter Forge is an incredibly powerful software and it can be incredibly useful especially if you’re willing to learn how to create your own filters. Although there are 9000+ filters, only 1/10 are what I would consider worth trying but that still leaves you with an insane amount of filters. Some of the effects are geared towards 3D artists who need seamless textures while the others are geared for photographers and designers who want to apply specific photo effects that can’t be done in Photoshop. There are obviously some great artworks and effects that you can create and you should visit their gallery to see some examples.

The amount of filters is great and the interface is intuitive, but we ran into some issues outputting high-res images. We used the professional version which lets us save images larger than 3000×3000 pixels but there were many times when Filter Forge crashed trying output anything larger than 3000 pixels – only the simplest filters worked. This was resolved this by using the Photoshop plugin instead of the standalone program. Also, some filters can take over 10 minutes to render a high-res photo but it depends on the complexity of the filter and your computers speed.

The only thing that is stopping us from highly recommending it is its price tag – at $250 for the standard and $400 for the professional version, it’s a hefty sum for many artists. You can buy a lot of premade Photoshop addons on Creative Market or GraphicRiver for that price but if custom filters is what you need, there’s no better software than Filter Forge. At the date of this review, the plugin is 50% off which makes the price much more in line with what we think people are willing to pay. A new version of Filter Forge 4 is also in the making but you might save money by buying Filter Forge 3 now at half price and preordering the upgrade to Filter Forge 4. Overall, it’s an exceptional software that we think every designer should try out with the 30-day free trial.

Pros:

• 9000+ texture and effect filters to choose from
• Create your own filters easily without any coding
• Works with Photoshop as a plugin or by itself as a standalone app
• A new version of Filter Forge is coming out and it may be cheaper to buy it now at 50% off and upgrade than to buy the new version at regular price.

Cons:

• Many filters crash when saving at 3000×3000 pixels or larger using the standalone app. The Photoshop plugin worked fine.
• Complex filters can take a long time to render. All processing is done on the CPU (no GPU rendering).
• Expensive

Why Photoshop CC and not CS7? Photoshop CC will only be available through Creative Cloud. Adobe has announced that they will be discontinuing the production of Creative Suite and push all their upgrades onto Creative Cloud – a subscription-based service. Therefore, it would make more sense to rename Photoshop from CS (Creative Suite) to CC (Creative Cloud).

New & Improved Features

Adobe Photoshop CC will come with two new filters, a revamped Image Size and Smart Sharpen, and better vector editing for rounded rectangles.

1. Smart Sharpen

The Smart Sharpen filter has been improved to give you better results with the reduce noise filter. With Photoshop CC, you can sharpen your photos with minimal noise and halo effects using the new Smart Sharpen filter.

Intelligent Upsampling

When you enlarge a photo, you know that there is a high chance that your photo can look too blurry. There are third-party software/addons that can enlarge your photo with better quality than Photoshop CS6, but in Photoshop CC, your Image Size tool will now give you sharper enlargements with the new resampling method called “Preserve Details (enlargement). There is also a “Reduce Noise” slider to control the amount of noise to remove.

2. Camera Shake Reduction

We all have great photos ruined by camera shake but there is no good way to fix it. Adobe gave us hope with a deblur demo shown at the 2011 Adobe MAX conference and this deblur filter is finally here 2 years later in Photoshop CC. This filter will help you save your blurry shots by analyzing the path of the camera shake and reducing the blur.

3. Editable Rounded Rectangles

This is a feature that already exist in Adobe Fireworks but Fireworks will be discontinued. It only makes sense to provide it in Photoshop so designer have an alternative software to switch to. With the rounded rectangle tool, you have to specify your corner radius first before drawing the rectangle. If you need to adjust the corner angle later, you would have to do it by hand using the path tools or create a new rounded rectangle. In Photoshop CC, you can adjust the corner radius individually and export the CSS data for your website.

4. Adobe Camera RAW 8

The new Adobe Camera RAW 8 gives you an advanced healing brush, radial gradients, and an upright tool that corrects the perspective of your photos. You can actually try these new features out in the Lightroom 5 beta. Another great feature is that you can apply ACR as a filter for your layers in Photoshop. This is huge for photographers!

What’s your take?

The new features in Photoshop CC sound great but how useful is it for you? Would you make the switch (if you’re not already a CC subscriber)? Let us know your thoughts on Adobe Photoshop CC in the comments below.

Tutorial Resources

• Clouds Background Image
• Lens Flare Brush

Step 1

Create a new document in Photoshop. Make it 1920 by 1200 which is a standard HD Wallpaper size. Now fill the document with black.

Step 2

Now open up your mountain/clouds picture and select the bit of clouds that you want in your background, or choose another background that you’d like for your wallpaper.

Step 3

Copy and paste the image you’d like (clouds in this case) into your wallpaper.

Step 4

Go to Image>Adjustments>Exposure and bring down the exposure and the offset and bump up the gamma a bit. This will creat some contrast and darken up your image so it’s punchy.

Step 5

In a new layer, use your marque tool and create a rectangle and fill it with white.

Step 6

Duplicate this white rectangle layer many times and start lowering the opacities at random levels. This will create something like the image bellow.

Step 7

When you’ve made about 10-20 dupicated layers with random opacities then go ahead and group them (highlight them all and hit ctrl/cmd + G) and then dupicate the group a couple of times to save you time. Then simply spread out the groups of rectangles by clicking and dagging them so they look randomish. This step is purely to save you time, and you can skip it if you want the ultimate random look to your wallpaper, but it will just take you longer.

Step 8

When you’re satisfied with your rectangle shape collage, form one final group with all your single rectangle group layers. If you’ve created multiple subgroups, then just group them all so that you can hit ctrl/cmd + T and rotate them all 45% to one side like so.

Step 9

This design that we’re doing is a “V” shape, so you need to highlight exactly one half of the wallpaper (to the opposite side you rotated your rectangle group) and create a mask. This will hide the portion that you haven’t selected. Then invert the mask by hiting ctrl/cmd + I. You could also do this step by selecting the side you want to keep and hitting the mask button for the exact same result.

Step 10

Then you can either move your group around so it looks like half of a “V” shape, or you can make a diagonal selection and mask out that region as well so you end up with something like this. You can do this editing on your mask layer by selecting it. Just remember that whatever is in white will show up, and whatever is in black will be invisible.

Step 11

Once you’re satisfied with your masking, go ahead and duplicate the group and flip it by hitting ctrl/cmd + T, then right clicking and hitting “flip horizontal”. Now you should see something like this.

Step 12

This is a checkpoint. Your layers should look similar to this. Now to save you space and memory, and make sure your computer doesn’t get bogged down by the size of the photoshop document you can duplicate this layer to make a copy, turn off the visibility (in the layers menu… it looks like an eye… click it!) and then flatten your new copy so it becomes a flat layer.

Resources

• Gothic Lolita – Kechake-stock
• Floor – SkyesStock
• Dress form – JinxMim
• Clocks – JinxMim | Alternative
• White Rabbit – Tilt-Stock
• Stormy Sky – EvanescentStock | Alternative
• Wall Crest – AshenSorrow
• Texture – SXC.hu

Step 1

Create a new file, 2000x2000px 300dpi.

Step 2

Now take the floor stock and paste it on the canvas.

Hit Ctrl + T and stretch it from the corners so that it’s large enough to cover it.

Then pull it down from the upper border to get a realistic-looking floor. Hit Enter to exit the Transform.

Step 3

Now take the wall crest and place it in the middle. Resize if needed. Be sure to keep it on a separate layer.

Step 4

Take the wallpaper tile and enlarge it so that you can see the pattern better. The wallpaper layer should be under the wall crest layer.

Duplicate the tile (Layer > Duplicate Layer) and move it beside the first one – make sure there are no gaps between tiles!

Merge the tiles together. (Select both layers on the layer palette and press Ctrl + E)

Step 5

Duplicate the layer with two tiles and place the duplicate under them. Again, look out for gaps where the background is showing.

Step 6

Keep working on the pattern by duplicating and merging them the tiles together. You can also make it a bit larger. (Ctrl + T and then stretch from the corners)

Step 7

Now the whole wall is done – but just to be sure, zoom in to 100% to make sure there are no spaces. All tiles must be merged together on one layer.

Step 8

Go back to the wall crest layer and click on the area around the crest with the Magic Wand Tool (W). You should have a similar selection. Make sure the contiguous box is checked when you select.

Step 9

Now go to the wallpaper layer and hit Ctrl + Shift + I and your selection will invert. Hit Delete to clear the area inside the wall. Finally, press Ctrl + D to release the selection.

Step 10

Place stormy sky on a new layer under the crest. Resize it a little until the clouds look pretty.

This is the result you should be seeing.

Step 11

For color correcting, go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and move the sliders to settings shown (-150 and -35). Also move the Vibrance slider to -60.

Step 12

Now take the Burn Tool with settings provided and burn the areas marked with red.

Your wall should look like this now.

Step 13

Now to the floor layer. To get the colours match, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and take Hue to -163, Saturation to -100 and Lightness to -43. Burn the red areas with previous Burn Tool settings.

Instructions

Download the Faded Films Photoshop Actions

Tutorial Resources

• Model
• Nebula Background
• Abstract Spheres
• Landscape

Step 1

First, start Photoshop and create a new document. This tutorial is also going to be a wallpaper, so the size i’m using is 1920 x 1200. You can follow all the individual settings as shown in the diagram below.

Background

Create a new layer and fill the contents with black. The base colour of the background is going to be black. Get the nebula stock image from the resources and drag it into your document on a new layer. To make it look good, we are going to reduce the opacity of the nebula layer to about 86%. You can also rasterize the background nebula by right clicking on the layer and selecting rasterize.

The background is a little grungy, so we are going to remove a little bit of the grunge by going to Filter>Blur>Surface Blur………and use the settings as shown below.Radius 18 & Threshold 23

Step 2. Insert your Model

Drag and drop the photo of your model into the document. It was pretty easy to remove the model from its original white background by using the magic wand tool and the layer masks feature.

Step 3. Focal Circle

This step is what i call the focal circle. The focal circle’s main job is to create a “focal point” in the image. (irony huh?). To create the circle, create a new layer by pressing CTRL + N on your keyboard. Now using the Elliptical Marquee tool (“M”) hold shift and drag & draw a perfectly round circle and fill it with black.

To cut out the middle of the circle use the same procedure by holding shift and drawing a perfectly round circle. When the selection has been made, drag it into the middle of the totally black circle and press delete. This should now leave us with a circular ring.

Voila!! Now we are going to move the circular ring layer below the model’s layer. To give the impression that the model is slightly coming out of the ring i’m going to use the eraser tool and erase “a little bit of her backside” as shown in the demonstration.

I used a reasonably sized large soft brush to erase the portion of her legs.

Step 4. Styling the Circle

To give the ring a neat retro effect i’m going to use layer styles and the default photoshop patterns. I’m using Photoshop cs5 to write this tutorial so lets hope our features look and behave the same way…………Anyways!!!

Double click on the circular ring layer to open up the layer styles dialog box or right click and select blending options.

Click on pattern overlay and follow the settings as shown below. Scale is set to 85% and i clicked the small arrow in the dialog box to choose the desired pattern.

The second layer style we are going to add to the circle is gradient overlay. Leave it at its default black to white gradient but change the blend mode to overlay and the scale to 37%. This gives us a nice gradient effect utilising the pattern.

Video Tutorial

Tutorial Resources

• Bebas Neue – Font Squirrel
• Pacifico – Font Squirrel

Step 1

Start by creating a new 1920×1200 pixels document. Select the Text tool and type in your inspirational text. The font we’re using is Bebas Neue and Pacifico. These fonts are free. Adjust the font size and leading to your likings. Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Edit > Free Transform) to scale your text then position the text in the middle.

To position your text perfectly in the center, select your text and background layers, switch to the Move tool, then click on the align center buttons in the options bar.

Step 2

Next we’re going to convert the text to 3D. To do this, right-click on the text layer and choose New 3D extrusion from layer.

Depending on how complicated your text is, Photoshop might give you a message that your text is too complicated for it to process. If this happens, you need to convert it to a path and use Adobe Illustrator to simply the path. To do this, right-click on the text layer and select Convert to Shape. Copy the shape layer to your clipboard then paste it into a new document in Adobe Illustrator. In Illustrator, go to Object > Path > Simplify. Checkmark the preview option then adjust the settings so that you get the least amount of points without distorting the text much. Copy and paste the text back into Photoshop. When you paste, Photoshop will ask how you want to paste your text as. Select Shape Layer then click OK. Delete the other text layer then right-click on the new shape layer and select New 3D Extrusion from selected layer.

Step 4

Once you convert your text into a 3D extrusion, Photoshop will switch you to the 3D interface. Go back into the Layers panel and select the background layer. We’re going to convert this to a 3D object so that we can use it as a wall for the 3D text. Right-click on the background layer and select Postcard. Switch back to the Layers panel and select the two layers. Merge the layers into a single 3D layer by pressing Ctrl/Cmd+E.

Step 5

We’re going to start by reducing the thickness of the 3D text. Select the 3D text layer in the 3D panel

In the Properties panel, reduce the Extrusion depth setting. You can get a better preview by going to 3D > Render to do a quick render of the scene. Photoshop will start rendering the picture and when it looks good enough, click anywhere to stop the render. Keep adjusting the setting and rendering until you get the results that you like. For my text, I used an extrusion depth of 100.

Step 6

Now we’re going to make the 3D text look gold. Select text material layers in the 3D panel. You can select multiple layers by clicking on the top material layer then holding the shift key and pressing on the last materials layer.

Your Properties panel will switch to the Materials settings. Start by setting the Diffuse color to a yellow-orange color. The color I’m using is #FFC000.

Step 7

We’re going to work on the rest of the materials later when we have everything else set up. For now, we’re going to align text layer with the background layer. Change your camera view to Left by right-clicking on the view box on the bottom-right corner and choosing Left.

Next, select the text and background layer groups. You can select multiple layers by holding the Ctrl or Cmd key. Select the Move tool then click on the align left edges button in the options bar. Now your text is aligned with the background and you can switch your view back to the Default Camera view.

Step 8

Render your scene by pressing Alt+Shift+Ctrl+R (Option+Shift+Cmd+R on Macs) to get a preview of how your text looks like. Everything looks pretty flat and if you like it this way, you can let Photoshop render the entire scene and save your image. We can do a lot more to make our quote look more dramatic by adding some lights. Lighting is a huge subject and it plays a large part in how your 3D text will look. There are many ways to light your 3D text but we’ll show you an easy one that uses just one light.

To add a light to your scene, click on the New Light button in your 3D panel and choose New Point Light.

We’re going to position this light on the top-right corner of the text and have it cast a shadow diagonally. Moving a light to the perfect spot takes a bit of experience with 3D but there’s an easier way to do this. Select the Move tool and set the 3D mode to Rotate in the options bar.

In the view box located on the bottom left of your screen, drag to reposition your view so that you are looking at your 3D text from the top-right corner. Think of it like playing a first person shooter game – you want to reposition yourself so that you can shine your flashlight from the upper-right side of the text. Once you’re in the right angle, switch your 3D mode to Slide and position yourself so that you’re further away from the 3D text. When you’re in the right position, click on the Move to View button in the Properties panel to move your point light to your current view. To make your shadow more noticeable, increase your intensity. We’ll readjust this setting later. Switch back to the Default Camera view then render the scene to preview your lighting. Play around with the camera view and light intensity to get the results that you like.

Tutorial Resources

• Water Splash SXC
• Male Head – SXC
• Paint Splatter – SXC
• Tulip Petals – SXC
• Star Brushes – Qbrushes
• Grunge Brushes – Qbrushes
• Patterned Spheres – Media Militia
• Hot air Balloons – Media Militia
• Stag – Mediamilitia
• Paint texture – Mediamilitia
• Model – Deviantart
• Flames – Deviantart

Step 1

Let’s create a blank document similar to these dimensions.

Step 2

A subtly textured background works well than a plain one. Locate the paint texture and bring it into Photoshop. Drag and drop it into the composition.

Desaturate the texture (Ctrl+Shift+U). You may need to resize the texture to fit the document.

Adjust the layer Opacity and blending to make it subtle. Double click on the layer thumbnail to load Blending Options dialog box.

Step 3

We now need to create several shapes that will define the overall design and contain other graphic elements. Set the color to #000000. Let’s Start off from the middle by drawing a circle with the Ellipse Tool. Choose the Shape layers option on the Options panel. Working with shape layers is very productive and time saving. They are resolution independent and can transform them without losing any quality.

Draw this shape using the Rectangle Tool. Edit the corner with the Direct Selection Tool.

Press Ctrl+T, rotate the shape by -45 degrees. Use the Info palette see to see the properties.

Reposition the shape. Duplicate the layer a couple of times. Stack the layers in this manner.

Now construct the bottom side.

Step 4

Create another circle outside the main circle. Duplicate the circle ( Ctrl+J ). Scale it approximately by 145%. Hold Alt+Shift while scaling to maintain the center point.

We need to punch a hole in the circle. Click on the Vector Mask thumbnail. Copy the path by pressing Ctrl+C and hit Ctrl+V to paste. Press Ctrl+T and scale it down to 80%.

Select the inner circle, on the Options Panel click on “Exculde overlapping shape areas” button to punch hole in the circle.

We don’t need the whole circle but a portion of it. Hide the rest with a layer mask.

Step 5

Create another circle bigger than the outer one. Just as before, duplicate the middle circle, place it below the rest.

Cut hole in the circle.

I want to use this part of the circle, hide rest of it.

Create a new layer above the cut circle. Use the Pencil Tool with 1px dia to create the pattern. Select it with the Marquee Tool. Choose Edit > Define Pattern.

Clip the pattern layer to the circle layer. The shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+G.

Duplicate the circle and delete the Layer Mask. Delete the inner circle.

Reduce the fill opacity to zero. Then Apply stroke.

Hide part of the circle with a layer mask.