How to Create an Eerie, Aged Photo in Paint Shop Pro 9

I came across this neat effect when I was trying to change over an aged tutorial from Adobe Photoshop into Paint Shop Pro. While I didn't get the effects meant for it, I discovered a great way to create some eerily aged, macabre looking photos.

Step One: I began with this (link here) lovely photo of some roses I took last September at Horse Pens 40 in Steele, Alabama. On the Layers Palette, right click on the photo and choose Duplicate.

Step Two: Once duplicated, go to Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Hue/Saturation/Lightness. Or as a shortcut, just click Shift + H and the menu will pop up. Once the menu pops up for that, drag the Saturation arrow all the way to -100 and click ok.

Step Three: Now, repeat step one and duplicate this newly desaturated image. Once that is complete, click Effects > Art Media Effects > Brush Strokes and set the settings to following settings. Softness = 50, Length = 10, Density = 25, Bristles = 160, Width = 10, Opacity = 33, Angle = 252 and Color = #505050. Click ok.

Step Four: Duplicate the layer with the brush strokes, then click Adjust > Add/Remove Noise > Add Noise from the top menu. Set the settings to Gaussian checked, Noise = 50, and Monochrome checked. Click ok.

Step Five: Once you have clicked ok, hold down the Ctrl button while pressing the Y key around 3-4 times, until the photo looks full of noise and none of the original photo can be deciphered from it anymore. I had to press it six times, but it all depends on your own personal photo being used, so do it as much as you deem fit.

Step Six: On the very same layer where you have just added the noise, click on Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the settings to 3.80 and click ok. Now comes the fun part.

Step Seven: Set every layer, except the colored original layer (should be the top three if the tutorial was followed correctly) to overlay. To do this, right click on the layer and choose Properties and then set the Blend Mode to overlay. Tada!

And there you go; you are left with a unique and amazing mysterious and eerie photograph. My roses were a wee little too dark, so I used the Automatic Contrast Enhancement option under Adjust to brighten it up just a little so it didn't just look like two white flowery blobs in a sea of darkness. Final photograph can be seen to the left (before photo here).

I also did one of a photograph of myself so you can see how the effects work with a human model. You can see that here. Please feel free to play around with this and see what wonderful creations you can come up with. This makes a fantastic effect that you can use for homemade computer greeting cards and even scrapbooking projects!