Smashing Magazine

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.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you already get your copy of the Smashing Book?]

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.

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.