Apply Vintage Poster to images and videos online
Create powerful vintage poster aesthetics with limited color palettes. Crushed contrast curves, thermal gradient mapping, aggressive dithering to 4 colors, heavy grain, and paint chip texture deliver bold retro graphics.
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Ideas for using the effect
Album covers & music artwork
Perfect for punk, rock, indie album art with bold graphic statements and vintage appeal.
Retro branding & advertising
Add classic 1960s-70s poster aesthetics to modern design with authentic weathered texture.
Editorial & magazine design
Create striking covers, cultural posters, and impactful visual statements with limited color palettes.
Concert & event posters
Design bold promotional graphics with screen-printed poster character and vintage texture.
Made with this effect
More inspiration on Instagram @effect_app
Use Vintage Poster in Photoshop, Figma or on your desktop
One account, the same effect everywhere.
In Photoshop
Apply it to a layer in Photoshop 2022 and later, on macOS or Windows. The plugin renders on your own GPU and hands the result back as pixels on a new layer.
get the Photoshop plugin →In Figma
Run it on images and frames without leaving the canvas. The Figma plugin is this same editor, pointed at whatever you have selected.
get the Figma plugin →On desktop
Install the macOS or Windows app when you want a window of its own, with your account and your presets already there.
download the desktop app →Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Vintage Poster preset do?
Vintage Poster applies paint chip texture overlay, crushed contrast curves, heavy chromatic grain, reduces colors to 4 tones via dithering, maps thermal gradients for dramatic color shifts, and adds threshold for pure black anchoring.
What creates the limited color palette?
Pro dithering with pattern type 21 reduces the image to just 4 colors with gamma adjustment, creating the classic screen-printed poster look.
Why thermal gradient mapping?
Thermal effect maps tones to dramatic color gradients—creating those iconic warm-to-cool or red-to-yellow transitions seen in vintage screen-printed posters.
What does the paint chip texture add?
The paint chip texture simulates weathered poster surfaces, peeling paint, and aged paper for authentic vintage deterioration.
Can I control the boldness?
Yes. Adjust curves for contrast intensity, dither color count for palette reduction, thermal gradient shift for color transitions, and threshold for black depth.
Does it work for video?
Yes. Vintage Poster runs in real time on video with static grain and color posterization for animated retro-style motion graphics.
What images work best?
Portraits, faces in profile, high-contrast subjects, and compositions with strong shapes work especially well for iconic poster impact.
Can I make a vintage poster effect in Photoshop?
Crushed contrast, thermal gradients, grain and limited-color dithering are four separate jobs in Photoshop. The Photoshop plugin applies the Vintage Poster preset to a layer in Photoshop 2024 and later in a single step.