Step 7: Add A New Blank Layer And Name It "Edges"

So far in our quest to turn a new photo into an old photo in Photoshop, we've replaced the photo's original colors with a classic sepia tone and we've given our photo a soft glow effect which helps remove some of the finer details from the image. The next thing we'll do is darken the edges of the photo. For that, we'll need a new layer. With the "Glow" layer currently selected in the Layers palette, hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

By holding down the "Alt/Option" key when we click on the "New Layer" icon, we tell Photoshop to pop up the New Layer dialog box for us so we can name the layer before it's added. We can also set some other options in the dialog box, but all we need to do here is name it. Name your layer "Edges":

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box and Photoshop will add the new layer. If we look in the Layers palette, we can see our new layer, named "Edges", above the other layers:

Step 8: Fill The Layer With Black

We need to fill the new layer with black. To do that, we'll use Photoshop's Fill command. Go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Fill, or use the keyboard shortcut Shift+F5. Either way brings up the Fill dialog box. Use the selection box in the Contents section at the top of the dialog box to select Black as the color we want to fill the layer with. Also, make sure in the Blending section in the bottom half of the dialog box that Mode is set to Normal and Opacity is set to 100%. They probably are, but better safe than sorry:

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box and have Photoshop fill the new layer with black. Your image will now appear filled with solid black in the document window:

Step 9: Select The Elliptical Marquee Tool

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the Tools palette. By default, it's hiding behind the Rectangular Marquee Tool, so you'll need to hold your mouse down on the Rectangular Marquee Tool for a second or two until a fly-out menu appears, then select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the menu:

Step 10: Drag Out A Large Elliptical Selection

With the Elliptical Marquee Tool selected, click in the top left corner of the image and drag down to the bottom right corner, which will create a large elliptical selection inside the document:

Step 11: Add A Layer Mask

We're going to use our elliptical selection to punch a hole through the solid black fill, allowing us to see our photo underneath, and we can do that by adding a layer mask. Now, whenever we add a layer mask with a selection active, Photoshop uses the selection to determine which part(s) of the layer should remain visible and which part(s) should be hidden. By default, anything inside the selection remains visible, while anything outside the selection becomes hidden from view. That means that if we were to add a layer mask right now with our elliptical selection active, Photoshop would keep the solid black fill area inside the selection visible and it would hide the area outside the selection, which is exactly the opposite of what we want. We want the area inside the selection to be hidden so we can see our photo underneath, while the area outside the selection remains visible.

We need to tell Photoshop to do the exact opposite of what it normally would when we add our layer mask, and we can do that simply by holding down the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and then clicking on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

We can see in the Layers palette now that Photoshop has added a layer mask thumbnail to the "Edges" layer, and we can see in the thumbnail that the area inside the selection was filled with black, which means it's being hidden from view, while the area outside the selection was filled with white, meaning it remains visible in the document:

And if we look at the image in the document window, we can see that we've successfully punched a hole through the solid black fill, allowing us to see our photo through it:

Just as a side note before we continue, you may have noticed that this was the third time in this tutorial that we've managed to do something a little differently by holding down the Alt/Option key when we did it. The next time you go to do something in Photoshop, try holding down your Alt/Option key while you do it and see what happens. The worst that will happen is absolutely nothing. But who knows that sorts of little-known features you may discover!

Obviously, we're not quite done yet with our darkened edges. We'll finish them up next!