Digital Camera World

Vintage looks in Affinity Photo

Learn how to age your photos with a range of classic looks, tonal treatments and filter effects

- FILE & VIDEO www.digital cameraworl­d .com/dc244 Find out more at affinity.serif.com/photo

In an age when even the most basic camera is capable of producing highresolu­tion images of crystal-clear digital clarity, there’s a certain charm to old photos and faded prints with their skewed colours, blurry details and imperfecti­ons. Thanks to Instagram and the like, vintage effects and filters can be added with ease in a matter of seconds. But if you want greater control and more individual­ity to your retro image, then it’s worth spending the time to create your own bespoke treatments.

Affinity Photo offers a host of useful tools for custom retro effects. In this project we’ll look at six different techniques. You can choose either to add them all, or pick the effects that will work for your own images.

Each of these effects sits on its own layer in the Layers Panel, so you have complete control to tone it down (by adjusting layer opacity) or edit whenever you choose. Affinity Photo gives you a degree of control over the vintage look that goes way beyond what can be done with one-click filters and phone effects. You can mimic the look of classic film stocks, degraded prints or scratched old slides with ease…

Blurred edges

Old lenses would often be very soft around the corners of the frame. We can get a similar look with ease by using the Depth Of Field filter. This adds a circular blur effect, with sharpness in the centre and fall-off around the edges. Highlight the image layer, then go to Layer > Live Filter Layer > Blur > Depth of Field. Adjust the blur area to cover the image, then experiment with Radius to control the strength of the blur effect.

Light leaks

Old cheap cameras often had gaps around the body that could let light fog parts of the film, resulting in bright orange shifts. We can replicate the light leak look with a Curves Adjustment Layer. Go to the Red channel and drag the curve line up, then drag down on the Blue channel. Press Ctrl/ Cmd+I to invert the Curves Layer Mask, then paint white to reveal the effect around the frame.

Retro colour shifts

Make a new pixel layer, then go to the Blending Mode dropdown at the top of the Layers Panel and change it from Normal to Exclusion. Next, go to Edit > Fill. Choose a light blue colour (we used R 76, G 72, B 244) then drag the layer Opacity slider down to around 25%. This will create a matte look, shifting the colours towards blue in the image shadows and yellow in the highlights.

Film borders

We’ve supplied an oldschool border amongst the project files for you to use. Alternativ­ely, if you have some old film then why not take a photo of it and make your own borders? Simply select the black areas with the Magic Wand tool, then copy (Cmd/Ctrl+C) and Paste (Cmd/Ctrl+V) the border onto your image. Once done, use the Move tool to position and resize it to fit over the frame.

Grain filter

Live Filters are ideal for adding effects as you can fine-tune the strength afterwards to suit your image. A noise filter will evoke memories of old film stocks with their distinctiv­e grain characteri­stics. Highlight the image layer, then go to Layer > New Live Filter Layer > Noise > Add Noise. Zoom in close to judge the strength of the effect, then increase the Intensity slider to control the noise.

Dust and scratches

We’d normally spend time removing bits of dust, but these little details add an extra dimension to our vintage effect. We’ve supplied a dust image for you to use, or you could make one of your own with ease by photograph­ing a sheet of white paper. Copy the image of the dust into your own image then go to the Layers Panel and change the Blending Mode to Multiply.

 ??  ?? After
After
 ??  ??
 ??  ?? Before
Before
 ??  ?? James Paterson With over a decade’s experience as a writer and photograph­er, James is also an accomplish­ed image editor – and an expert in Affinity Photo.
James Paterson With over a decade’s experience as a writer and photograph­er, James is also an accomplish­ed image editor – and an expert in Affinity Photo.
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia