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Digital Sepia Toning Made Easy using Photoshop 6

by Antonio Iacovelli; created 2002

This guide is a simple and effective alternative to Ed Scott's Digital Sepia Toning. In seven easy steps, you'll be able to add the classic sepia look to your photographs, which many prefer over black and white because of its warmer look.

Step 1

Open the image in Photoshop 6. If it is a colour photograph, desaturate it. If it is a black and white photograph, make sure that you are nonetheless in a colour mode (this guide refers to RGB mode only, which can be set in Image|Mode|RGB Color). You may, at this point, also want to subdue the image's contrast a bit.

Step 2

Go to Layer|New Fill Layer... and select Pattern

Step 3

In the dialog box that appears, set the New Layer's Opacity to 40% (though you can experiment with this; I like 40%) and click OK

Step 4

Now select the 'Wood' pattern and scale it down to 1

Step 5

Go to Layer|Flatten Image

Step 6

Increase image brightness by about 5 and contrast by about 25

Step 7 (optional)

With the Eyedropper tool, select a dark brown and a light brown from your image to set as foreground and background colours. Then go to Filter|Texture|Grain... and add grain, tweaking with the sliders for the desired effect.

Before and After

Text and photos, Copyright ©2002 Antonio Iacovelli

Readers' Comments


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Geno Piazza , May 20, 2005; 06:59 P.M.

Seven steps and bad quality sepia! Just another reason I do not use PS. I can do sepia from color or B&W in 1-2 steps with my cheaper (a lot!) and easier to use Micrografx Picture Publisher.

David Baxter , January 12, 2006; 01:08 P.M.

Not the best sepia effect I've seen to be honest. I tend to use the toning actions from MountPhoto - had to pay a little for them but the results look better.

Dan Roman , February 27, 2006; 02:00 P.M.

There are lots more methods of getting a sepia tone using Photoshop.One of examples, by using Hue and Saturation, tick colorizing box, and playing with hue&saturation untill happy with it...

JuanCarlos Torres , March 24, 2006; 10:56 P.M.

I use a combination of Lab Color and duotone in photoshop. I also use use some of Fred Miranda actions for B&W and sepia. portland oregon wedding photographer

Steven McQueen , October 09, 2006; 12:09 A.M.

Nice way to do it Gene, although some of us are stuck with elements 2.

I about laughed at the idea of using a texture... cool trick but theres an easier way with much more control.

After converting to b/w in whatever method you choose, add a solid color layer. start with 50% gray, and set to color blending. adust the hue to whatever color you want, then bump up the saturation level to get the feeling you are looking for ;) Note: you do not have to convert to b/w using this method.

Steven McQueen , October 09, 2006; 12:19 A.M.

duotones can be done simular using a gradient map. However the presets I would imagine to be just as nice.

Peter Ballasiotes , January 10, 2007; 03:14 P.M.

Thats a horrible tutorial.

Ema Popa , February 07, 2007; 01:45 P.M.

not that horrible.. He maybe wanted tot show us how to make an old sepia photo... This way I explain myself the noise add and the wood texture. Anyway, a new perspective ! :)

Antonio Iacovelli , February 12, 2007; 11:41 A.M.

Thank you, Ema. That is exactly what I was trying to do. :-) Everyone's a critic, I suppose. It's all good.
best regards to all,
Antonio Iacovelli

Mark Brown , May 23, 2007; 04:49 A.M.

Try the sepia action ro photoshop on Russellbrown.com its free and pretty good results


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