Retro 50’s Postcard

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to take an ordinary photo and transform it into an aged retro postcard straight from the 1950’s.

To start, create a new document (mine’s 500×375px) and give it a light grey background. Our first layer is going to be nothing but a large, white, rectangle, so this is necessary in order to see what we’re doing. You can change it later.

Now create a new layer (call it “card” and make a large rectangular selection. When doing so, you want to select “Fixed aspect ratio” as your rectangular marquee tool’s style and enter a width/height ratio of 4:3. For reference, my rectangle is 450×328px. Fill the selection with white.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Retro 50's Postcard - Fig. 1

Next, Ctrl+Click on the card layer to load its selection and then go to the Paths palette and click the “Make work path” icon to create a rectangular path from your selection.

Now create a new layer (call it whatever you like –we’ll be deleting it momentarily) and hit “D” to reset the brush color. Now, select the paintbrush tool and open the brushes palette. Choose the 10px diamond brush and set the spacing to 100%.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Retro 50's Postcard - Fig. 2

Now go back to the Paths palette and click the “Stroke path with brush” icon.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Retro 50's Postcard - Fig. 3

Next, Ctrl+Click on the layer to load its selection. Delete the layer. Now, with the “card” layer active, hit delete to give the edge of your postcard a nice, scalloped edge.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Retro 50's Postcard - Fig. 4

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Added Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 5:28 pm under Photo Effects.