Analog Efex Pro, part of the DxO Nik Collection, has some great vintage film effect presets, but you don’t have to use them exactly as they are provided. It’s very easy to customise and adapt these presets to give exactly the kind of look you want.
Textures
Textures are a great way to add an 'analog' feel to a digital image. They can be relatively subtle, such as adding a 'paper' texture that simulates the fine pattern or fibres of art paper, or more dramatic, simulating the look of an old photographic 'wet plate' or unusual printing materials like tin or wood. Textures can also replicate the appearance of a scratched, stained or faded print.
To add them manually you need an image editor that supports layers and a selection of texture files – you can photograph textures yourself and build a collection.
Alternatively, you can use software with filters for blending in texture files (Skylum Luminar) or programs with a library of textures built in, such as Alien Skin Exposure X, ON1 Photo RAW or Analog Efex Pro (DxO Nik Collection).
Preset picks: ON1 MacArthur preset
Preset picks: The ON1 MacArthur preset stacks two instances of the ON1 Textures filter and adds the Dynamic Contrast filter to give the look of a textured, sun-faded vintage colour print.
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How to add age and drama with texture effects
Digital images don’t have much texture. Your subjects might, of course, but the way cameras render tones is glassy-smooth (at low ISO settings anyway) and sometimes a little sterile. Adding a texture digitally can make a picture look more interesting, more tactile and more ‘hand made’. Textures can be very subtle, like the fine texture […]
How to use the ON1 Photo Texture and Border filters
ON1 Photo RAW has a huge library of preset effects and you can try them all out just by browsing through the categories and clicking on the ones you like the look of. But that doesn’t really get you any closer to figuring out how its effects filters work and how you can use them […]
6 tips for getting an authentic analog film effect
Modern cameras can reproduce the world with utter, clinical accuracy. The trouble is, it turns out that’s not what we wanted after all. A lot of the time, what we actually want is the faded, distressed, imperfect look of analog photography. So here are six top tips for getting that analog film effect ‘look’ with […]
Did you know you can stack filters in Google Snapseed?
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How to use the Nik Collection Analog Efex Pro Camera Kit
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Mask your effects with the Perfect Effects Masking Bug
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Create a dirty Kodachrome with Perfect Photo Suite!
Photographers are never happy. We couldn’t stop complaining about our dirty, faded colour transparencies when they were all we had, and we couldn’t wait to swap to nice, clean, everlasting digital images… only now they’re the norm, we miss our grubby old transparencies. So I’m going to use Perfect Effects to try to recreate that […]