Photoshop Effects: Old-Fashioned, Hand-Tinted Effect

Step 8: Drag The Upper Left Slider Towards The Right To Bring Back The Shadow Detail

Drag the top left black slider to the right to bring back the shadow detail. As you drag more and more towards the right, you'll see more and more of the detail in the shadows re-appearing. That's because "Layer 1" is blocking the details in the shadows, so what we're doing by dragging this black slider towards the right is telling Photoshop to hide the darkest areas in "Layer 1" and allow the black and white image beneath it to show through in those areas instead. Continue dragging towards the right until you've brought back all the detail in the dark parts of the image. Here I've dragged mine to 50:

The only problem now is that there's harsh lines along the areas where "Layer 1" and the black and white image beneath it meet. We need to soften those areas and create a nice transition between them, and we can do that by holding down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac), clicking on that same black slider and dragging it back towards the left. Holding Alt/Option will split the slider in two, and you'll be dragging the left half of it towards the left. As you drag the left half further towards the left, you'll be increasing the distance between the left and right halves, and that space in between creates the soft transition area we're looking for in the image. I've dragged my left half of the slider back to a value of 10:

When you're done, click OK to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box, and you've completed the effect!

Here's my original image once again:

And here's my finished "old-fashioned, hand-tinted" effect:

As I mentioned, you can use this tinting effect on all sorts of images. Here's a different photo:

And here it is after applying the same effect:

In the case of the second image, I fine-tuned the effect by lowering the opacity of "Layer 1" to 50% to reduce the amount of color in the image:

If you need to add more color to the image, simply lower the opacity of the Channel Mixer adjustment layer. Not only is this effect easy to create, it's also easy to adjust and fine-tune as needed.

If you want to add to the "old-fashioned" look even further, try combining this effect with our Burnt-In Edge Effect for something like this:

And there we have it!

Want an easier way to follow along with our tutorials? Download them as printable PDFs!