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35 Beautiful Vintage and Retro Photoshop Tutorials

By Jacob Gube, October 14th, 2008 in Tutorials | 141 Comments | Forum

By Jacob Gube

With the recent post on retro and vintage in modern web design, it’s time to put the theory into practice. We’ve scoured the Web to find some impressive Photoshop tutorials that can help you achieve an "old-fashioned" look-and-feel in your designs. In this post, we go back to the 1900’s all theway to the 1980’s to showcase a variety of vintage- and retro-inspired designs that involve poster art, collages and graphical elements. Whether you’re into print design or web design, you’ll find something you can use or build upon.

Without further ado, we present 35 high-quality vintage and retro Adobe Photoshop tutorials that may help your design… well, travel back in time.

Vintage and Retro Photoshop Tutorials

Colorization Tutorial
This short tutorial showcases a method for colorizing a black and white photo to achieve an aged, vintage look.

Wicked-Worn Vintage Pop Art Design
Mesh vintage pop art with grunge to create a unique mash-up of the two popular design styles.

Retro Grunge Poster
Wield the Pen Tool and utilize some free brushes and textures to achieve this retro-grunge hybrid look-and-feel.

Vintage Film Style Video
Use a stock image of an old TV and Photoshop CS3 Extended to play vintage-style video clips inside the TV.

Give Your Photos a Retro Comic Book Effect
Here’s another method for creating a retro-stylec comic book effect to your photos using Photoshop.

WWII Airplane
Recreate the World War II airplane brushed-metal texture and paintings in this excellent Photoshop tutorial that involves using Noise and Blur filters.

Cool Vintage Collage Design
In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to use old advertisements, hand-written text, and patterns to create a vintage design.

Pin-up Effect
This video tutorial showcases how you can create the classic 50’s pin-up effect using some Photoshop filters and Blending Modes.

Radio Knobs/Dials of the Past
Learn how to design old-school radio knobs/dials in this Photoshop tutorial by skillfully using of the Marquee Tool in Photoshop.

Old Fantasy Map of Your Area
Learn how to create a vintage, aged map using a screen shot of the area of your interest in Yahoo! Maps.

Turn of the Century Vaudeville Poster
Create a beautiful turn-of-the-century poster geared towards intermediate to advanced Photoshop users.

Virtual Letterman Jacket
In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to design retro-style varsity/letterman lettering using some ingenious Layer Styles.

B-movie poster art
In this tutorial, you can learn the techniques involved in recreating B-movie posters from the golden age of cinema.

Gigposter Design
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a retro-styled poster using Photoshop and Illustrator.

Vintage Polaroid Effect
This photo treatment tutorial shares a method for creating a vintage look using modern, colored digital photos.

Photoshop Vintage Effect
Learn how to age modern digital pictures by adjusting contrast, saturation, and Curves in this short step-by-step Photoshop tutorial.

Vintage Fifties Letter
Create this aged letter envelope by following this Photoshop tutorial that’s aimed at intermediate Photoshop users.

Vintage Truck
In this short Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn some techniques on how to use colored digital stock images to give it a vintage/retro look-and-feel.

Make it worn
Learn how to create a worn look-and-feel web design background, using detailed from scanned book pages.

Comic Book Photo Effect
Learn how to take ordinary photos and give it a retro-styled, pop art comic book effect.

Vintage collages in Photoshop
In this tutorial, you can gain insights and learn useful methods on how to achieve a vintage collage.

Make your own pop art
Learn the techniques involved in creating your own classic 50’s style pop art.

Hot Chick on a Muscle Car
Create a retro-styled post card using stock photos that are linked to by the author of the tutorial.

Retro Wallpaper/Poster
This step-by-step tutorial walks the readers through the process of creating a retro wallpaper/poster.

Retro Style Game Controller
Illustrate an old-school gaming console joystick using Photoshop with this wonderful tutorial.

Retro Stars
Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to create stars and then add multi-colored streaks to it, to achieve this popular ’80’s look and feel.

Sweet Radio Station Advert Design
Learn how to create a radio station advertisement with retro curves with the help of Illustrator (or download them from vector stock sites).

Pop Art Inspired by Lichtenstein
Create Lichtenstein-style pop art design by studying this Photoshop tutorial geared for intermediate designers.

Retro Lighting - Ford Mustang
You can utilize the Custom Shape Tool for elements of the design to recreate this 70’s inspired design.

Mix Cool Retro Curves into Your Photographs
Combine retro with modern design styles and elements to create this stunning photo effect.

Photoshop Serigraphs
Learn how you can take a portrait to recreate this Andy Warhol inspired pop-art.

Retro Sunflower Design
Remake this sunflower-themed retro wallpaper using ready-to-use Photoshop brushes, the Ellipse Marquee Tool, and custom shapes from the Custom Shape Tool.

Retro Summer Poster Illustration
Utilize some of Photoshop’s vector tools to create a summery retro poster illustration.

3D Retro Strip
Use the Pen Tool to create 3-dimensional retro strips.

Abstract Retro-Pop Wallpaper
This tutorial shows readers how to design a colorful retro-pop wallpaper using stock photo for texture and the RNS Bobo Dylan Font.

About the Author

Jacob Gube is a web developer/designer and author of Six Revisions, a blog on web development and design. If you want to connect with the author, you can follow him on Twitter.

Published in Tutorials, October 14th, 2008
Tags: inspiration, retro, Tutorials, vintage

1.

Derek (October 14th, 2008, 8:04 am)

Very nice collection, I’ve been trying to locate a decent collection of retro-style tutorials!
1st post! Sweet!
2.

Justin (October 14th, 2008, 8:12 am)

These all are so great. I’ve been looking for things like this
3.

Jason (October 14th, 2008, 8:15 am)

Excellent. You guys never fail to bring the good stuff.
4.

Jonathan (October 14th, 2008, 8:16 am)

Is it me or these long collections of design things are becoming a bit boring? Has this website lost its essence somehow?
5.

dev(Www.iHaCK.ASIA) (October 14th, 2008, 8:24 am)

i like the Wicked-Worn Vintage Pop Art Design, the no.2,really beautiful.
6.

Rodmanu (October 14th, 2008, 8:27 am)

@Jonathan
I personally think it is great to have those long collections of design, Internet is so vast and it is time consuming to do such a research, I find it really helpful to have these kind of articles and search for them into smashingmagazine rather than on the whole web.
7.

Roshan (October 14th, 2008, 8:47 am)

Nice collection of vintage art. I might try few of these to improve my photoshop skills.
amazing effects.

Roshan
8.

Common (October 14th, 2008, 9:17 am)

Anyone have good tutorials on creating different types of note paper and sticky notes in photoshop?
9.

Raphael (October 14th, 2008, 9:47 am)

Thank you! i love these retro styles…
10.

steve (October 14th, 2008, 10:12 am)

awesome, thanks
11.

Cosmi (October 14th, 2008, 10:52 am)

I love retro & vintage !
12.

Herbert Berends (October 14th, 2008, 11:02 am)

Nice list. Very useful! I was surprised to see that they have used my picture/illustration of an old TV! I had no idea of this new function in Photoshop CS3…
13.

gNcWebmaster (October 14th, 2008, 11:17 am)

Awesome Collection. Thanks For…
14.

ronen (October 14th, 2008, 12:06 pm)

Great!
thank you, not so much for the tutorials but for the collection itself. it’s always useful.
Ronen.
15.

Jad Graphics (October 14th, 2008, 12:23 pm)

Awesome retro tutorials. Can’t wait to try some of these out.

Jad Graphics
16.

Joe (October 14th, 2008, 12:53 pm)

LOL @ the “Ford Mustang” tutorial. The car used is definitely not a Mustang…
17.

Tom Ross (October 14th, 2008, 12:56 pm)

Thanks for featuring my tutorial. Great list you have here, I hadn’t seen a few of these before :).
18.

Stefan Matei (October 14th, 2008, 1:07 pm)

Hey, thanks for the mention!
19.

Cos (October 14th, 2008, 1:08 pm)

Great list, thank you! I’ve done a few of these tuts with fantastic results (and learn a thing or two in the bargain).
20.

Steve Tolley (October 14th, 2008, 1:25 pm)

Thanks for including my tutorial, great collection, Very Useful!

Stevie :D
21.

Jimi Ninja (October 14th, 2008, 2:02 pm)

I thank them for putting it all in one place and making sure I don’t have to trawl the internet trying to find stuff. Cheers!
22.

BCS (October 14th, 2008, 4:46 pm)

This is truly a very pleasant surprise for me… thank you so much for including my tutorial on your list! Like what Tom Ross said, I haven’t seen a lot of these before, and they’re all beautiful! :) I have a strong feeling that I’ll be using some of these someday. :)
23.

Eli (October 14th, 2008, 6:26 pm)

Thank you for linking to one of my tutorials on Design Blurb :) Great roundup.
24.

Praveen Sewak (October 14th, 2008, 7:31 pm)

WoW! Guys whose tuts. are linked here actually read SM. Can’t say that i am surprised, but wow! SM is the first browse of the day for me.

Great list btw. There are a few i would definetely use in my designs. [Hot Chick on a Muscle Car] for one… hehe.

Good job (again) SM…
25.

gaurav_m (October 14th, 2008, 8:57 pm)

nice ..simply great
26.

Roshan (October 14th, 2008, 9:06 pm)

Thanks nice post.
27.

John Sexton (October 14th, 2008, 9:12 pm)

Wow, I’m thrilled to see my work featured on here too (Vintage Turn of the Century Vaudeville Poster)!

That was the first tutorial I’ve written up, but I hope to do more before too long.

Thank you! This site is a great resource.
28.

Marco (October 14th, 2008, 9:31 pm)

Yes Jonathan, it is just you. These roundups are great, very helpful. Thanks guys.
29.

Ash (October 14th, 2008, 11:31 pm)

Once again, excellent resources !

Some effect were still hard to achieve for me, now i will be able to complete my skills.

Thanx a lot !
30.

Sophia (October 15th, 2008, 12:15 am)

There can never be enough retro and vintage :D. I am so feeling the 3D Retro. Nice!
31.

honour chick (October 15th, 2008, 12:39 am)

AwESOME!!! makes me want to cry :(
32.

freshness (October 15th, 2008, 1:39 am)

i already knew some of them, but this is a nice bunch, thanx :)
33.

Riccardo (October 15th, 2008, 2:46 am)

Nice article, it’s always great to have these tutorials collected together in one place. I’m sure these will be useful in the future.
34.

Jacob Gube (October 15th, 2008, 3:09 am)

Hi everyone! I’m glad you enjoyed this article. Since the vintage/retro trend is (relatively) still in its infancy, it was quite a challenge to find this many high-quality tutorials to share with you.

To the authors of tutorials featured here, I’d like to thank you for providing us with top-notch tutorials and helping us advance our craft by sharing your techniques and knowledge.
35.

Jesse Vlasveld (October 15th, 2008, 3:48 am)

I’m certainly going to experiment a little with this style, it’s hot.
36.

Chris (October 15th, 2008, 4:18 am)

Brilliant list - I’m bent double, gagging with the waves of nostagia..
37.

yogesh lalchandani (October 15th, 2008, 4:33 am)

Nice Design styles and coloring tuts
38.

armanjac (October 15th, 2008, 5:56 am)

Armanjac essai délicious
39.

Ann Edwards (October 15th, 2008, 7:07 am)

@Joe. No kidding. I find that more than slightly annoying….

That’s the only one included that I don’t think matches the quality of the others.
40.

Luke (October 15th, 2008, 2:22 pm)

Nice collection. Where would one use this?
41.

Burkhard (October 15th, 2008, 3:21 pm)

realy great tuts. They are very helpfull for editing my photos.
42.

wrend (October 15th, 2008, 9:21 pm)

Great Website! Great Tutorials! I just found great brushes on this blog I can use for designing.
43.

Simon (October 16th, 2008, 8:58 am)

Great list, love the Retro Grunge Poster Tutorial.

Thx for the post.

Cheers
Simon
44.

Lonelytraveller (October 16th, 2008, 10:32 am)

Great tutorials, thanks! I wish I found a post like this before creating the vintage graphics for my blog.
45.

Alvaro Guzman (October 16th, 2008, 10:43 am)

thanks for posting my tuts (Vintage pop art, and old TV) in the list!!!
46.

hughe palmer (October 16th, 2008, 1:41 pm)

this is one of the better tutorial collections i have come across. nice work!
47.

mnvamsi (October 17th, 2008, 2:42 am)

Well these fellows are really gems..
great work when compared to previous photoshop articles..
I have to take a brief look at all the tutorial in detail.
48.

Spyece (October 17th, 2008, 5:51 am)

Wow thanks a lot mate! These tutorials are really the best once out there.
49.

amy nickerson (October 17th, 2008, 11:44 am)

Mustang tutorial was great. But I substituted a REAL Mustang in the picture. Someone needs to tell them it’s not a Mustang!!
50.

billseymour (October 18th, 2008, 8:22 am)

Terrific roundup. I’d previously found about 1/2 of them- the beauty of the list, for me, is the other half! Please continue the ‘long list’ concept- I’d enjoy seeing additional topics explored. –Bill
51.

Mark Mayers (October 21st, 2008, 5:07 pm)

Nice one!

Thanks for including my ‘Invaders from Venus’ and ‘Pop Art’ tutorials!
Mark
52.

SAMUEL HEIDEMANN (October 23rd, 2008, 12:33 pm)

Olha esse post com muitoooooos tutoriais para design retrô!!!!

show de bola
53.

Abifahrt (October 24th, 2008, 12:34 am)

Very nice tutorials,

thank for the collection
54.

faze1 (October 29th, 2008, 10:41 pm)

thanks for the set,
55.

dim (January 23rd, 2009, 8:20 am)

great tuts…And also on Link [www.designioustimes.com] you can find a great retro tut.
56.

fede (January 30th, 2009, 2:50 pm)

yo te di una ayuda
nos vemos tu amigo
de argentina FEDE
SALUDOS
57.

chris davies (March 26th, 2009, 11:31 am)

superb, genius
58.

Aravind (March 30th, 2009, 11:31 pm)

Mind blowing collections!!!! I’ve been looking for things like this. Really fantastic collection. Keep it up.
59.

kenneth-ac (April 5th, 2009, 6:38 pm)

just marvelous, wonder if i’ll manage to do something similar, or at least respectable hahaha
just kidding, i know i can…
60.

wjong (May 22nd, 2009, 9:08 pm)

nice tutorial, thanks for sharing