how do people make icons look sorta old like vintage.
like these

Try playing with the contrast, hue/saturation, brightness...and so on, in Photoshop. Sepia tones and faded colors make things sort of old looking.

Let me know if you need more detail than that.

^ Yea, some of that too. But also with the text, I think they use Lucida Bright, and it's always in grays, light yellows with a semi-low opacity.

easiest way: go image > adjustments > variations...
mess with the colors and the lightness/darkness until you get something you like. If you want it to look even better, then go image > adjustments > hue/saturation and lower the saturation a little bit.

http://www.createblog.com/forums/index.php...6419&hl=vintage

There was a tutorial on this like somewhere i can't find it now but what she did was she would use like a dark navy blue color and play with the blending mode or options then put a brownish color or gradient over it and lastly she would go to filter>>sharpen>>sharpen edges.

Yea, I've always been wondering about this. It's definately a neat look I like.

im using photoshop elements (since my photoshop broke) and i cant see the go image > adjustments > variations. is there a way to do it on photoshop elements?

.... Filter -> Adjustments -> Photo Filters -> Choose sepia from the pull menu.
That's about as good as you're going to get. You can do what SHAWTY_TOYA said too.