Vintage Filter - Add Retro Filter to Photos for Free

Easy-to-use vintage filters

Apply an old photo effect for free. No software downloads or learning curve, thanks to the user-friendly DIY tools.

Customizable retro effects

Choose the filter intensity to perfect your vintage look, whether you want classic black and white or retro grain.

Instant nostalgia

Quickly transform images with a vintage photo filter that evokes the charm of bygone eras.

How to make photos look vintage

Upload an image

Use the Browse files button to select and upload a photo.

Add vintage filter

Customize filter effects

Edit and enhance

Preview vintage effects and artistic styles in real time

Not sure which old photo effect to use? The instant preview feature allows you to explore multiple styles from different decades and see the changes right away. Capture the sharp contrast of 1950s black-and-white photos, the warm sepia effect of a weathered 1930s photo, or the faded colors and hazy grain of 1980s photos. Rest assured that the exported images will maintain their high quality, so you can enjoy an authentic vintage aesthetic without sacrificing quality.

Never run out of ways to showcase vintage photos

Give any photo collection a nostalgic edge with the help of an old photo filter. Vintage effects offer a quick, easy way to create a sentimental mood or draw upon historic influences. With an old-camera filter, users can restyle images for a variety of uses, including:

Professional or school projects: Evoke a sense of nostalgia with your branding materials, product photo shoots, and presentations.

Social media: Stand out with unique, retro-themed posts.

Personal collections: Design scrapbooks, memory albums, or artistic photography.

Enhance images before filtering for the best results

Achieve the highest visual quality in your vintage photo edit by enhancing images before and after filtering. Unpixelate photos and sharpen their details. Add a cartoon filter to turn vintage-themed photos into graphic art. Apply glitch effects that distort your photos in creative ways. From the image extender to the background changer, Picsart provides a suite of editing tools that make it easy to remove flaws, change elements of a photo, and add cool visual features.

Vintage filter FAQ

What is a vintage filter?

A vintage picture filter is a tool that changes the color, lighting, clarity, and sharpness of an image to make the photo appear aged or to resemble the photo quality produced from old film cameras.

This type of digital filter often uses several exposure techniques at once to make photos look vintage. For example, many vintage filters give photos a gray, faded, sepia, or yellowed appearance by allowing black, white, tan, brown, or pale yellow light to pass through the filter while blocking most other colors.

Another common technique is to replicate the effects of poor lighting or old lenses, such as streaks, grainy spots, low resolution, and blur. Some filters even make photos look weathered from physical damage, such as wrinkles and scratches.

How to get a vintage filter?

Open the Picsart photo editor to give the vintage photo filter a try. Upload an image to the photo editor or search for one in the image library. When you’re ready to apply the vintage effect, select Effects and choose the correct filter in the Simple category.

Can I customize the vintage photo filter?

Absolutely! You can customize the intensity of the filter to make photos appear more or less aged and adjust other photo properties, such as color saturation, to get the look you want.

Is the vintage filter free to use?

Yes! You can add a vintage effect to photos for free. Some Picsart tools and content require a subscription, but a variety of features and photo effects are available to try out free of charge.

Can I apply the vintage filter to any image format?

Yes! The vintage filter is compatible with a variety of common image formats, including PNG, JPG, and PDF. The retro filter even works with SVG file formats, giving you the flexibility to edit and enhance vector images.