free texture download here
http://academy-of-photography.com/rembrandt-lighting-technique-old-painting-vintage-style-effect/
I have been fascinated about this ole vintage look for a portrait. I have seen many professional photography competitions in my past and I have noticed that fact that making a portrait looking old in Rembrandt style is appreciated. This is not copying blindly the famous painter, it is just borrowing few visual language elements.
A good lesson for any artist photographer is to study art history and try to understand various approaches to beauty. I believe using elements of visual art from one domain to other can be successful, especially we are talking here about painting and photography as 2 different self standing artistic field.
I have noticed that the old vintage look can be easily achieved in post production either in Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom, where playing with the colour balance, white balance, contrast, exposure and few other basic controls is very easy. Also adding a bit of old dried paint texture can be done with photo shop by adding a soft light blending layer on top which borrows a specific texture , and blends it into an image. Please follow the video above for the detail how to do the photo shop post editing part.
Another aspect one needs to consider is also the Rembrandt lighting, as if the direction of light is not good, there is nothing you can do in post production. As a photographer I always ensure that the result form the camera is already an end result and I never rely of the post processing and editing step, as if the pictures is staffed up what happens after is useless. The Rembrandt lighting set up means one soft light at 45 degrees to one side of the model and above. The face is half lit and there is the light triangle cast by the nose to the shadowed cheek.