Freebies
I recently discovered a fantastic collection of Daguerreotype photographs from the mid-1800s in the public domain, which I’ve transformed into the perfect tools for producing vintage photo effects. I picked the most deteriorated images from over 800 scans and photoshopped out the main subject to leave just the texture of the tarnished metal plate. They are all over 2500px in size with a high resolution of 300ppi and feature a variety of natural stains, scratches and scuffs that will give your modern digital images the authentic appearance of an antique photograph.
I used to love drawing my own treasure maps as a boy, especially the tea-staining stage which transformed my doodled piece of white paper into an antique parchment. I’ve been reliving that childhood experience by producing a toolkit for Adobe Illustrator which helps you construct your own treasure map digitally, using a range of vector assets to plot a route to buried treasure on a fantasy island. Download my free Treasure Map Maker to create fun artwork for party invitations, storybook imagery, wall art and more. It includes vector graphics, brushes and patterns that can be quickly combined to build a fictional landscape.
Adorn your digital designs with elegant flowers and bouquets with this collection of 10 free floral graphics. These vintage illustrations have been sourced, scanned and processed into PNG images with transparent backgrounds for quick and easy use within your artwork. Use them to decorate prints such as greeting cards and wedding invitation, or layer up the flowers to produce trendy ‘floral typography’ pieces by interweaving type with the help of a layer mask in Photoshop.
In my latest video tutorial I covered 5 ways you can generate film grain effects in Photoshop. One of my tips was to use an actual film grain texture as an overlay, which achieves a much more authentic result than the uniformity of the built-in noise filters. I’ve been busy making a mess on my scanner to produce a range of film dust effect textures using the dust, fibres and speckles from an old burlap sack. The natural scattering of particles produce a great image that can be used to add dirty effects to your work. Choose from 30 texture images, each with a unique amount and spread of dust to distress your artwork and simulate aged photograph prints.
I’ve literally driven miles to produce my latest set of free design resources. These 24 Dirt Textures are created taken layers upon layers of road grime from long motorway journeys, processed into high resolution JPG textures and PNG files with transparent backgrounds. They’re great for adding dirty backgrounds to your designs, or applying to layer masks to distress your artwork. Being taken from real surface grime means these digital resources help you produce authentic effects with intricate details, which just can’t be replicated with built in Photoshop filters alone.
The Duotone effect is still proving to be a really popular trend years after I initially talked about the topic in a video tutorial back in 2015, where I showed how to replicate the Spotify Style Duotone Photo Effect from their rebrand at the time. That post also contains a free Photoshop Action you’re welcome to download, but today I have a fresh Duotone themed design resource for you to play with. My new collection of free Gradient presets contains 40 vibrant colour combinations you can pick and choose from to add really stylish effects to your photos and images. Use them in combination with a Photoshop Gradient Map to quickly produce the popular Duotone effect.
