Give old stamp effect to an image using Photoshop

Today I am going to present you an interesting tutorial on photo editing using Photoshop. Hope all of you have seen human faces printed on old stamps and notes. All these prints have had a special feature, which is not present in modern prints. That is, all of them are consist of tiny curved lines. These lines may vary in thickness or may be continuous or dotted as required. More darker places having lines in multiple directions as well.
Here is an example image, to get an idea before start the tutorial (image is from www.polyvore.com )

To start the work, find a good image which having a human face close-up. You may select either colour or B&W, but i recommended to use a bigger image. I have selected the following image with 1024 x 963 px.

Open the selected image in Photoshop and then go to File menu and start a new PSD file with the same dimensions as the selected image. You may choose background colour as white and Color mode as RGB. Copy the selected image and pasted on the newly created PSD file (Now it should pasted on the file as a new layer). Select this new layer, go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast… and increase the Brightness of the layer until your image looks pail ( like a washout image). I have increased the Brightness to 100, but it might not be same for you. Select a value you prefer. You may fine tune it later, once you get the complete idea of this tutorial.

This is how my image looks like when change the Brightness.

Copy the selected layer (Ctrl+A to select all and Ctrl+C to copy) and paste (Ctrl+V) 4-5 times on the newly created PSD file. If you do it correctly, the pasted images will be on different layers as below.

Now you are having several similar layers. Click on the “Eye” of the layers and hide all the copied layers except the first one. Now, Background and Layer 1 will be the only two visible layers.

If you feel, you might lose the positions of the pasted images while working, lock the positions of all the layers using the “lock Position” button just above the layers.
Then go to Image > Converse Size and change the Width and the Height of the converse to 200%.

Now it should have enough space around the selected image. Surely you will wonder about this step, but it is really essential to overcome a limitation of Photoshop software. Sometimes you may not require this step for Photoshop versions higher than CS2 (I am not sure). But I really need it because I am using Photoshop CS2.

Now set the Foreground colour and Background colour to pure black and pure white respectively.

Then select Layer 1, and apply Filter > Sketch > Halftone Pattern. Set the filter parameters; Size-1 Contrast-10 and Pattern type-Circle and press OK.

Then you should get something like below with nice circular pattern.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast… and increase Brightness. But don’t increase the Contrast, it will lost some of the details in the lighter areas (see the figure below).

Now the first layer is completed.

Turn on the “eye” mark of the Later 2 to make it visible. When it visible, it will cover the finished layer, the Layer 1. Zoom out the image until you can see the complete area of the Canvas and select a nearly square area using “Rectangular Marquee Tool”. This rectangle should draw to cover ¾ of the image and go to one end of the corner of the canvas at the opposite end. If it is not clear, see the figure below.

Now we are going to change the Layer 2 to get a similar look as Layer 1. To do that, by keeping the selection, apply “Halftone Pattern” filter and then adjust Brightness without changing the parameter values you have used for Layer 1 (make sure you have selected Layer 2). Now you should get a similar layer to Layer 1. Press Ctrl + Shift + I to invert the selected area, and then press Delete to remove the area which haven’t apply the effect. Then set the “Blending mode of the layer” to “Multiply”.

Repeat this to 3 more layers by changing the selecting area for rest of the three corners. Once you have completed repeating this you should get something like this (if you having more unused layers, keep them hide further).

Now, the remaining part need bit of art. First, hide all the layers on top of the Layer 1 (Layer2, Layer3 …). Now you can see only Layer 1 with a centre point of the pattern in the mid. So we have to remove that point. Use Eraser tool or brush tool with white colour to remove these centre point (use with less Hardness to avoid having boundary).

Now turn off the visibility of the Layer 1 and on Layer 2. Remove its centre point and make the two internal borders smoother using the Brush or Eraser tool.

Repeat this to rest of the layers as well.
Now turn on all the layers (except unused layer), you should have something like below.

Now turn off all the layers except Layer 1 and 2, and erase the Layer 2 at the places where the curved lines are crossed in a lesser angle (say 45°) to having an unpleasant pattern.

Once you repeat this to rest of the layer, you will get something like below
.
If there are place where don’t covered by at least two layers, add 1-2 more layers with different selection areas to cover them. Remove the centre points and sharp edges of the new layers as well. I have two more layers.
Now go to each layer and erase unnecessary places as you like. You don’t need to have visible more than 2 layers at the same place. Once you satisfy about what you get Flatten the image and adjust Brightness/Contrast of the image as you like. You may also adjust the colour of the image using “Colour Balance…” s well.
This is what I got.

Tags: line effect, old stamp, Photoshop, tutorial