Wanted Poster Maker

How to Use the Wanted Poster Maker

1. Pick a style: Old West, sheriff notice, pirate bounty, modern, party or pet.
2. Select the Photo, Name, Crime or Reward element to edit it.
3. Choose Letter, A4, Tabloid, A3 or a social post size.
4. Drag elements on the preview to rearrange the poster.
5. Check the export size, then download or print your wanted poster.

1. Pick a template. Old West and Sheriff notice use aged parchment and wood type lettering, Pirate bounty uses an old blackletter style, and Modern, Party and Pet are made for jokes, birthdays and gifts.
2. Select Photo and choose, drop or paste a picture. Faces work best when they fill most of the frame. Use Zoom and Pan to frame the face.
3. Keep the template's photo effect or change it. Sepia and faded vintage suit the western and pirate designs, and black and white suits the sheriff and modern ones.
4. Click the name, crime, reward and footer and type your own words. Every font, size, color, letter spacing and rotation can be changed.
5. Drag elements on the preview to rearrange them, or drag the corner handle to resize.
6. Download a PNG or JPG, or print it at Letter, A4, Tabloid or A3 size.

What Real Wanted Posters Looked Like

Printed reward notices were common in the United States in the 1800s. Most were simple text bills set in large wooden type, often with a name, a description, the crime and a reward amount, issued by a sheriff, a railroad or an express company. Photographs only appeared on posters later in the century, once printing photos became practical. The familiar "Dead or Alive" headline is far more common in western films and novels than on surviving original posters. This maker leans into that movie version: bold slab and western lettering, parchment paper, a sepia portrait and a big reward line.

How the Aged Paper Effect Works

The parchment background is generated in your browser, not loaded from a stock photo. It starts from your background color and layers several effects:

The noise uses a fixed seed, so the same poster always looks the same when you export it again. Changing the Background color recolors the paper while keeping the texture. The sepia filter converts each pixel to brightness with the standard weights 0.299 red, 0.587 green and 0.114 blue, raises the contrast slightly and tints the result warm brown.

Worked example: a mid-gray pixel with red, green and blue all at 128 has a brightness of 0.299 × 128 + 0.587 × 128 + 0.114 × 128 = 128. The contrast step leaves 128 unchanged, and the tint turns it into red 155, green 127 and blue 88, a typical sepia brown.

The Six Templates

Tips for a Convincing Poster

• Use a front-facing photo with even light. Strong shadows look muddy after the sepia effect.
• Give a nickname. Western names usually include one in quotes, such as Silas "Snake Eyes" Morrow.
• Keep the crime short and funny. Two lines read best at a glance.
• Print on cream or kraft paper for a more authentic look, then crumple and flatten it, or tea-stain the edges.
• For a party, print several posters with different guests and use them as decorations or place cards.

Use It Responsibly

This tool is meant for fun, props, games and gifts. Only use photos of people who have agreed to it, and never make a poster that could be mistaken for a real police or government notice. The templates contain no agency names or badges for that reason. Your photo is processed only in your browser and is never uploaded.

Frequently asked questions