For this tutorial we will be focusing on  taking a photo and then applying a vignette, and aging it.  You could then  apply the simple vignette technique to other photos.

Begin by editing your photo for  cropping, levels, curves, etc. Anything you generally do to make a photo look "right"

Once your photo has had basic edits applied,  you are ready to begin the aging process. 

 

First duplicate your image, and  turn the copy black and white, through whatever technique you wish. Once your image is black and white,

you can now turn it a sepia or copper tone. I like to use the default sepia tone  style in Photoshop CS3, and then  go into the layer effects, color overlay and change the color

to a more deep copper, with slightly less warmth. This is really personal preference. 

 

Once you have your photo in a sepia or old tone that you like, its time to apply a dark vignette. 

 

Draw an oval( color doesnt matter here ) over your image using the shape tool. Once your oval is drawn,  use the free transform tool ( control +t) to drag each edge of the oval, to the edges of your photo

 

Rasterize your shape, and apply a guassian blur with approximately a 250 pt blur ( will change depending on the size of your image )

 

Now select around your blurred oval (  can control + click  the layer icon on the layers palate to accomplish this, or use the wand tool ) , then inverse your selection.

 

Create a new layer over your photo, and hide the layer of your blurred oval, while keeping the selection intact. Fill this selection with a  black or brown ( or other vignette color of your choice )

 

Now that you have your vignette applied, you should see a remarkable improvement in your image, but we can still age it more. Choose a grunge brush, or a a rough edged brush from the photoshop brushes menu and  use the burn tool around the edges of your image 

 

Our final step is to add some texture with a wrinkled overlay.  

(i set my blend mode to vivid light )