I did this tutorial a while back for Keren from Free Pretty Things for You she asked me to show her readers how to use her cute Tape Strips Freebie on your images. I am also going to show your how to add a vintage touch to your photos. Don’t worry, it is easy and fun. This is the finished product (yes, my silly daughter never takes a normal smiling photo, she thinks that she has to always pull a funny face!):

We are going to use a FREE online software (no download or registration required, you just use it on the internet). The program is Pixlr.com.

If you want to add vintage effects to your photo, then start here, but if you like the photo the way it is, skip to Step #2.

Step #1: Add Vintage Effects to your photo using Pixlr-O-Matic.
Go to pixlr.com and click on “Retro Vintage Effects” to get into Pixlr-O-Matic.

I had my daughter do the Webcam image, but you can upload any pic from your computer too.

This is what our pic looked like before we made any changes…

I picked the following options as the program took me through each of three steps…

Then I saved it to my computer.

This is the final outcome of my image…

 

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Step #2: Add your tape strips using the Pixlr Editor, Go back to pixlr.com and click on “Open photo editor”.

Then open the picture that you just edited, or whatever picture that you want to add the tape strips too.

This is the final outcome of my image…

On the top menu bar, click on “Image” and “Canvas Size”.

Then you need to click on the CENTER box, and add an additional 100px to both the height and width of the image.

Now you will need to open your tape strips, (which can be downloaded here)

When your strips are open, you need to select the “Crop Tool”…

…and drag it around the tape strip that you want to use, then hit “Enter” or “Return” on your keyboard to crop it.

Then you are going to need to change to your “Selection” tool (the black arrow)…

…and click and drag the “Layer 0” onto your picture behind it (you may need to move your windows so that you can see the picture behind it).

The tape strip will probably look really huge, just depending on the size of your picture.

So you will need to go to the menu bar, and click on “Edit” and “Free Transform”.

Now you can click on on of the Blue Corner dots, and HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY on your keyboard while you drag it smaller. Make sure to hold down the shift key, so that the tape doesn’t get scrunched funny.

Once you have it the size that you like, you can use the rotate tool by the blue corner dots to rotate the tape.

You can now use the “Selection” tool, to move it and place it where you want it.

Next, if you want more than one strip of tape, you can click on the tape layer, and drag it to the
new layer icon. This will make another tape strip, which you can then move to the spot you
want and you can do an “Edit”, “Free Transform” to rotate it too.

If you want your tape strips to be slightly transparent, like some tapes. You can click on the
layer and then click on the bottom left icon. There you can change the opacity to something
semi-transparent, but you may not even want to do this step :)

You can see the difference here between the 2 strips.

After you change the transparency of the next strip, all there is left is to save it!

There you have it :)

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial!  Below I have posted links to more free tape strips!!

 

1.  Free Washi Tape Download from Bonjour! Blog

 

2.  Free Tape Strips by the Pugly Pixel.

 

3.  Free Clip Art: Tape Strips from the Pugly Pixel.

 

4.  Free Clip Art: Tape Strips (Solid Sequel) by the Pugly Pixel.

 

5.  Mint and Mocha + Free Washi Tape Download by Creature Comforts.

 

 

6.  Old Sticky Tape Textures + Photoshop Brushes by Fuzzimo.

 

 

7.  Free Tape Strips by A is for Ampersand.

 

 

8.  Free Tape Strips Part 2 by A is for Ampersand.

 

 

9.  All Lace Tape Strips by Sweetly Scrapped.