How to Get the 70's Look in Photoshop

Photos from the 1970s are often faded and have muted colors.

Photographs taken in the 1970s are now almost 40 years old, and so time has worked its magic on many slides and prints in fading the contrast and introducing subtle color changes. Many of the images we see now from the '70s are muted, and it is often the reds that fade more than other colors to give a slightly earthy tone. Adobe Photoshop has many tools and filters to enhance or modify digital photographs to recreate the muted and faded colors that typify a 1970s image.

Instructions

1. Open the image in Photoshop. Select "Layer," then "Duplicate Layer" and name it "1970."

2. Select the "1970" layer and click "Image," then "Adjustments" and "Desaturate" to create a grayscale version of the original. Slide the "Opacity" slider to around 45 percent to allow the original color image to show through the layer with a muted effect. Select "Layer," then "Flatten Image" to combine the layers into one image.

3. Select "Image," then "Adjustments" and "Channel Mixer" to open the options box. Drag the "Red" slider to 80 percent, "Green" to +10 percent and "Blue" to +10 percent to desaturate the reds in the image. Your image may require slightly different values, but keep the total to around 100 percent to avoid unusual color shifts.

Tips & Warnings

• Try the effect on portraits and landscapes to create a different style to the saturated images you see today.

• Always save your image using "File" and "Save As" to avoid overwriting the original file.

References

• Eightyone Design: Examples of 1970s Photography
• Photo.net: Mimicing 1970 film style