How to Create a Vintage Fade Effect Photoshop Action

What You’ll Be Creating

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a vintage Photoshop effect using such Photoshop effects as smart filters, adjustment layers, and overlay textures.

1. How to Prepare the Document

Step 1

Press Control-N to create a new document and use the following settings: 3000 x 2000 px; 300 dpi.

Step 2

Go to File > Place and put your image inside the document.

Step 3

Resize your image to the borders of the document and hit Enter.

Step 4

After that, Right-Click on the layer and then Convert to Smart Object.

2. How to Create a Vintage Photo Effect

Step 1

Select the smart object and then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use the following settings:

• Amount: 2%
• Distribution: Uniform
• Monochromatic: On

Step 2

After that, go to Filter > Filter Gallery > Texture > Grain. Use the following settings:

• Intensity: 15
• Contrast: 59
• Grain Type: Regular

Step 3

Place the overlay texture above the smart object and change the Blending Mode of this new layer to Screen.

3. How to Create a Fade Photo Effect

Step 1

Now let’s start to create our fade effect. Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Gradient.

Step 2

Double Click on the Gradient Fill layer and use the following settings:

• Style: Linear
• Angle: 135°
• Color: #f7ff00; Location:  0%.
• Color: #912a00; Location: 100%.

Step 3

Change the Blending Mode of the gradient fill to Soft Light and the Opacity to 35%.

Step 4

Create another gradient fill layer with the following settings:

• Style: Linear
• Angle: -3,58°
• Color: #252b45; Location:  0%; Opacity: 0%.
• Color: #f7ae8e; Location: 100%.; Opacity: 100%.

Step 5

Change the Blending Mode of the gradient fill to Hard Light and the Opacity to 35%.

Step 6

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map and then Double Click on the gradient map icon and create a gradient with the following settings:

• Color: #313059; Location: 0%.
• Color: #4c4b75; Location: 29%.
• Color: #ba6167; Location: 55%.
• Color: #ff7038; Location: 93%.

Step 7

Change the Blending Mode of the gradient map to Soft Light and the Opacity to 60%.

Step 8

Create another gradient map with the following settings:

• Color: #1a535d; Location: 0%.
• Color: #32d49d; Location: 100%.

Step 9

Change the Blending Mode of the gradient map to Overlay and the Opacity to 25%.

Step 10

After that, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and use the following settings:

Step 11

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast and create a new layer with the following settings: 

• Brightness: 5
• Contrast: 35

Step 12

Now we need to create the last gradient fill with the following settings:

• Style: Linear
• Angle: 45°
• Color: #313067; Location:  0%;.
• Color: #b03d11; Location: 100%;

Step 13

Change the Opacity of the layer to 15%.

Awesome Work, You’re Now Done!

In this way, we can create an atmospheric-looking image using overlay textures, adjustment layers, and gradients. Feel free to contact me for any help with the techniques we covered.