Inspiring Retro Style Effect

Inspiring Retro Style Effect

Give your images some nostalgic value by creating an inspiring retro style effect. It’s incredibly easy and takes only a few steps to complete.

Layers, the Elliptical Marquee Tool, the Zoom Blur filter and color adjustments are used in this tutorial.

Step 1

Open any image to which you would like to add a retro style effect in Pixelmator.

Step 2

Create a grainy effect by over-sharpening the image a bit. Choose Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen and set the amount to approximately 50%. Click OK.

Step 3

Give the image a subtle retro color look by adjusting the color tone. Choose Image > Color Balance and experiment with different sliders. Use the example in the image below as a reference. Click OK when you are done.

Step 4

The retro effect will look even more realistic with dark, dimmed corners. To get corners look that way, click to select the Elliptical Marquee Tool in the Tools palette. Hold down the Option key to start the selection from its center. Then, click and drag in the image to draw an oval selection across the entire image. Use the selection in the image below as a reference.

Step 5

Make the selection border softer. Choose Edit > Refine Selection and drag the Feather slider to approximately 60%.

Step 6

To edit only the corners of the image, Choose Edit > Invert Selection

Step 7

Click the Add button (+) in the Layers palette to create a new layer. With the newly created layer selected, choose Edit > Fill to fill the selection with color. In the Fill dialog, choose black and click OK.

Step 8

Choose Edit > Deselect to clear the selection. To create a dimmed effect, choose Filter > Blur > Zoom. Set the amount to approximately 17 px.

Step 9

Reduce the Opacity to approximately 60% in the Layers palette to make the dark edges appear more transparent. And, the inspiring retro style effect is complete!