How to make a vintage baby photo in three simple steps

 I love vintage and antique photographs and decided to try and make my 4 month old look straight out of the 1940s.  I selected a photo that had a simple background and focused on his face--something which captured his bright-eyed expression.

To create a vintage look was very easy--only three steps and it can be done in any photo editing software.  Two free programs are Picasa (download only) and Picmonkey (online only you have to pay for their premium features)

Step 1: This is the image out of the camera.  Dark.  I used an auto contrast and fooled around with highlights to get it a little brighter.

Step 2: Now that's better.  After brightening things up I selected a little white "vignette" border to put the focus on his face.  In Picasa this is found under "vignette" and then you change the color to white, and in Picmonkey the option is under Effects--> Frost.  I then selected Infared Film and it suddenly made him look like a vintage photograph from the 1940's!  I'd tried the black and white but it left his face too flat.  This one emphasized his expression.

You can play around to get the look you want, especially depending on the skin tone of your baby.  My baby is very fair and this method worked well.  You can also add a white border, and in Picmonkey I love the premium "Craft" borders.  Go have fun!