X24 Designs

So you are into that vintage-esque look. And you probably wonder, wow that is great! But how do I do that. Read on…

What you will need:
Photoshop 7 or higher (some aspects of this tutorial might change with version)
Resource: vintage.zip

This is my first tutorial so tell me if it’s understandable. Thanks in advance!

Most vintage pieces have a paper texture base to give it that “old” feel. You can scan your own, I recommend old paper with lots of fiber, or you can quickly download print quality piece of paper texture off of stock exchange for free. (You must sign up)

For this tutorial we are using: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/845527 for its nice brown texture.

Start by creating a new document, to the size that you want. Now if you are going to print this piece, make sure it is 150-300DPI so that it doesn’t’ come out all pixilated.

My size is: 1280px by 1024px at 72DPI.

Place the picture of the paper in into the document and move and size so that you can clearly see the different fibers in on the canvas.

If your paper is one solid color around it, add a border of black just to make the paper a little darker on the edges.

Before

After:

Now to make the inside, I use a block of #1e0b06 (in the color picker). Create a rectangle that you want to be the stage of your vintage artwork. Use the align tool to center it on your page by selecting the layers and hitting the align tool. You must have the select tool active.

Make sure you have the layer you want to align selected with the layer you want to align the layer to.
Keep in mind that the layer above the bottom layer will move.

I ALWAYS use layer masks just because if you want to redo what you erase later, you can!
(If you’re not familiar with using layer masks go to my masks tutorial)

Now with the layer mask enabled, take out some of the edges with some paint brushes. Remember to make them black.

I have used some brushes from:
http://spazz24.deviantart.com/art/Spazz-Splatter-Brushes-20284595
http://vexingart.deviantart.com/art/Blood-Splatter-Brushes-11819573

You will get something like this:

Now on to the wood texture. I have included the wood texture in the zip file but if you want to create it yourself, reference my [creating textures] tutorial.

Add the wood texture. Desaturate it by going to:
» image » Adjustments » Desaturate
use soft light blending mode (If you do not know how to use blending modes please reference my blending modes tutorial).

Now to copy the dark browns layer’s layer mask you must first copy the dark brown rectangles layer.

Drag the layer mask from the copied layer onto the wood layer

Tada! The wood texture has the same layer mask. Now delete the copied brown layer that now has no layer mask.

Bring the contrast and the brightness down by going to:
» image » Adjustments » Brightness and Contrast
Tweak till you get something like the below picture.

Now to the stripes:
to make theses stripes I actually used rounded squares. The key to the vintage technique is that you need to use the right kind of colors for your palette. I have used:

yellow: #ffb400
orange: #ff7e00
tan: #c39958
turquoise: #056643

Now make a cube and rotate it to your liking. Now copy it by holding down the alt (apple key on mac) and dragging it. Recolor the next layer by double clicking the layers color. Repeat to your liking so you get something like this:

Now select all the cube layers in your layers palette and hit ctrl + G, this will group layers together so you can copy the whole group. Do the same with the group as you did the layer and while the group is selected, hold down the alt(apple key) and dragging. Rotate this group to a position opposite the last group so you get something like this:

Now to get this group to fit into the same frame as the dark rectangle of wood repeat the same process of copying the layer masks as before with the wood layer.

Now to text!
I have included a nice font to get started with in the zip file. It is CHI-TOWN.TTF To install it, drag it into your c:/windows/fonts (or mac hardrive/library/fonts I think).

Big Letters are used and the use of large blocks to extend the letters is also common in the vintage-esque picture. Play around with the words to your liking until you get something like this:

Adding small highlights to enhance the picture can be done now.
Go to your group of cubes and selecting the same color as the line next to your splatter highlight is key.

Make sure your layer is below the line you want to splatter

Put your splatter over the nearby line and click

Repeat to your liking.

Now you’re almost finished!

Select the original paper layer and duplicate by holding down the alt (apple key).
Bring it to the top of ALL of your layers so that it covers the whole page.
Desaturate it :
» image » Adjustments » Desaturate
and put the multiply blend mode.

I added an extra Brightness and Contrast and Hue/Saturation layer to the top to fix some levels and things you can add them also but they are not needed.
»Layer » New Adjustment Layer » Brightness and Contrast
»Layer » New Adjustment Layer » Hue/Saturation

The truck I added will be another tutorial on the side.
Updated: New truck tutorial.

But you got the main gist of things: