How To Create A Vintage Postcard Effect In Photoshop For Nostalgic Photos

How To Create A Vintage Postcard Effect In Photoshop For Nostalgic Photos – A popular style of postcard design throughout the mid-20th century was called “Leather Moor”. Often with the words “Greetings from…”, these postcards displayed the name of a place with fake 3D type effects and included different images of that location cut into the text area of ​​each letter. The style has become iconic and is referenced by designers who want to create works of art with a nostalgic or retro theme. In today’s tutorial, I show you how to create a vintage-style capital letter postcard design, using the tools available in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop to reproduce the visual characteristics of those original memories.

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How To Create A Vintage Postcard Effect In Photoshop For Nostalgic Photos

The design we will create in this tutorial is inspired by the classic style of Llythri Mawr postcards. We’ll use Adobe Illustrator to produce the 3D text style, then import the artwork into Adobe Photoshop to replicate the photo effects in each letter. Adding some image filters and textures will give the digital design an old print aesthetic.

Retro Magazine Halftone Photo Effect

To get familiar with this iconic design style, Google “Postcard Greetings” to see hundreds of examples from across America. You’ll notice that the effect of large letters is common throughout, often skewed at different angles and accompanied by bold colors.

We’ll start in Adobe Illustrator where we’ll build the basic text layout. Create a new document and set the place name of your choice with the Type tool. Choose a strong and bold font. I’m using Futura Condensed Extra Bold with Tracking down to -50.

Convert the text element to outlines by choosing Convert to Outlines from the right-click menu or by using the shortcut CMD+Shift+O. This will convert the font into a series of vector letter shapes.

Offset path. Enter 2px in the options menu to create a larger copy of the text shapes. Give these new shapes a light gray color.

Design A Vintage-inspired Postcard In Photoshop

Offset path menu again to add another 2px zoom view. Change the fill of this second outline to a medium blue piece.

Currently, the outlines of each letter overlap each other. Right click and select Ungroup to separate the 3 groups of text shapes.

Draw a selection around the entire wording to capture all the text shapes, then right-click and select Group.

Extrusion and bevel. Change the position settings to 1°, 1° and 0°. Increase the Extrude Depth to 1000 pt, then change the surface option to No Shading.

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Right-click repeatedly and select Ungroup until the option to completely split the object into individual parts appears.

Hold down the Shift key and select all the shapes that make up the protruding parts along the bottom edge of each letter.

Drag a selection across the entire artwork and press CMD+C for Copy, then CMD+F for Paste Forward. Click the Unite button from the Path panel to merge everything into one shape.

Turn the fill and stroke options around in the toolbar to give this shape a blue outline. Increase hit weight to 2pt.

Design A Retro Postcard With 3d Text

Use the Magic Wand tool to quickly select red/orange shapes, then make a duplicate using the CMD+C and CMD+F shortcuts. Change the fill to a black and white gradient, then adjust the angle to 90° in the Gradient panel.

Paint a halftone and give the radius settings 5px max, then 45 in each of the corners of the screen.

Change the blending mode of these shapes to Color Burn to let the halftone effect interact with the light shapes below, then lower the opacity to about 30%.

Place some additional text above and below the 3D wording. I use a hand script font from my collection called SignPainter. (No longer on Adobe Fonts. Try Corner Store instead! – https://spoon.graphics/3SFj1WK)

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Copy the text elements, then use the Paste Back command (CMD + B) to create a duplicate copy. Push the copies down and to the right using the cursor keys, then change the fill to the same light gray swatch used earlier to add a simple drop shadow effect.

Switch to Adobe Photoshop to start preparing the main postcard canvas. Browse free photo sites like Unsplash and Pexels to find a variety of images that match your chosen location. Open one of them in Photoshop and convert the layer to a smart object.

Oil paints. Adjust the stylization to 1.5 while maximizing the other settings to 10. This filter quickly gives the photo a painted effect to mimic the hand-drawn nature of the original postcards.

RGB color to convert the image from CMYK. Double-click the Background layer to convert it to a standard layer.

U01.5 Create A Retro Postcard Using Clipping Masks In Adobe Photoshop

Flip the photo document over, then copy and paste it onto the postcard canvas. Resize the image, then drag the photo layer below the postcard texture in the Layers panel.

Change the blending mode of the postcard layer to Multiply to allow the tones and texture of the image to show through to the base photo.

Select the photo layer and lower its opacity to about 70% to create a washed-out effect that simulates an old print.

Use the Marquee tool to draw a rectangular selection in the postcard texture, then add a layer mask to crop the image to size.

Paint It Old!

Switch to Illustrator and copy the text artwork. Paste it into the Photoshop canvas as pixels, making sure it sits below the postcard texture in layer order.

Color competition. Configure Lightness to 10, Color Intensity to 100, and Fade to 0, then set the Source option to the name of the current document, followed by the Blend option for the Layer. This adjustment will change the light colors of the Illustrator artwork according to the tones of the background image to allow those light colors to blend better with this vintage theme.

Select the Magic Wand tool and make a selection on the face of the first letter. Create a new layer and fill the selection with black using the shortcut ALT + Backspace.

Use the magic wand to select the face of the next letter and fill this selection on a new layer. Continue the process with each letter of the place name to create a series of individual letter layers.

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Switch to the photo document in Photoshop and double-click the Smart Object layer thumbnail to edit its contents. Paste an alternate photo from your collection. Save and close the PSB file to see the smart filters applied to this new image.

Press CMD+T to transform, then scale and position the image to show an interesting part of its content on the face of the letter.

Open the next photo from your collection and paste it into the photo document smart object to apply the color effect filters. Copy the updated image into the postcard document and place it above the next letter layer. Apply a clipping mask and adjust the image to fit.

Repeat the steps of processing the photo and cropping it to the face of the letter for each of the individual letter layers.

Vintage Postcard Photo Effect

Change the Noise layer’s Blending Mode to Overlay, then lower the Opacity to tone down the grain effect.

The final artwork is a beautiful tribute to those classic postcard designs. Illustrator’s 3D tools help replicate the text processing in the original designs, while Photoshop’s image and texture adjustments help give the artwork an aged and distressed look to achieve a nostalgic vintage look.

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