Sepia Toning

[Cinbrat]

Hello Everyone. I'm hoping this is the forum to eliminate the need to look at dozens of website for answers to questions I have when using Photoshop. I've used Photoshop for quite some time. I can do quite a bit with it but there is so much more to discover. I'm willing to help others and hope to get help in return.

I have an acquaintance that posts pictures quite often. There is some kind of texture/overlay that she uses to get a specific tone to a lot of her pictures. I've asked for the "secret" but don't get a response. I'm wondering if anyone can figure out what is done to her original image to end up with the tone you see in this picture.

 

[Paul]

We need the original for a comparison, but quick fix would be light brown overlay with a lowered opacity maybe?

 

[Crotale]

I agree with Paul. I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would add such a heavy handed color overlay that yellows the teeth of the subjects. This is generally an undesired side effect.

I used the Auto Color function and found the original color palette to be more palatable.

 

[Tom Mann]

Should you want to do more research on this "look", a fairly common generic name for this effect is sepia toning / tinting / grading. Most often, this is done to B&W photos, but it can just as easily be done to a color image.

Even excluding the many 3rd party commercial plugins that can easily add this sort of color tint (eg, Tiffen DFX, NIK Color Efx Pro, OnOne PhotoTools, Topaz ReStyle, etc.), as is always true in Photoshop, there are numerous ways to obtain very similar looks just using the native tools PS provides, particularly, adjustment layers.

Below is a series of screen shots that show approximate values for the major settings for several different adjustment layers, all of which give a light brown tinting effect similar to the one in the example you posted. To use any of these effectively, you absolutely must be comfortable using settings and techniques such as:

• layer opacity,
• layer blend mode,
• the BlendIF sliders,
• the use of a vibrance/saturation adjustment layer to pre-process an image by reducing the highly saturated colors before applying one of the above tinting techniques,
• masking,
• etc.

For example, the suggestion to put a layer with a solid color above the image and reduce the opacity will not come close to the look you want unless you change the blend mode to "color" and use the BlendIF sliders. Simply reducing the opacity isn't enough to get close to the look you want, but you won't understand the visual difference until you try both approaches.

In addition, since we don't have the "before" version of the image you posted, and because each of your own images will be different, we can't recommend particular settings. You will have to adjust the parameters to optimize each of the following techniques for your particular image.


"Hue/saturation" adjustment layer in "colorize" mode at partial opacity:



"Photo Filter" adjustment layer:



"Solid color" adjustment layer using the color layer blend mode and the BlendIF sliders:



"Color Lookup" adjustment layer:



"Gradient Map" adjustment layer at partial opacity:




HTH,

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

@Crotale - I couldn't agree with you more, but you would be amazed at the number of pro wedding photographers who sell the couple on a sepia tint or reducing the saturation of an album full of pix, saying that this is the "latest fashion", or is their own "truly unique, signature" look (...yeah, right ... unique to them and 100,000 other wedding photographers). Then, to add insult to injury, they add an additional charge for intentionally mucking up the colors.

To add insult to injury, here's a little trade secret: If the photographer knows that they are going to apply such effects, they can be much less careful with color balance. This vastly speeds up their post processing, is a blessing when shooting in mixed light situations, and, depending on the strength of the effect they apply, it may allow the photographer to do away with the need to put a color balance gel over their flash to match the ambient light.

They can get away with this because many, many people are hoodwinked by the novelty factor of such looks - "well, gee, I can't get pix like that out of MY camera, so he must be a really good pro". The truth be told, these days, many little point and shoot cameras come with a "sepia toning" setting, so the pix come out of the camera looking like this.

Cheers,

Tom

PS - And you thought *you* had strong feelings on this topic. LOL.

 

[Tom Mann]

@OP - If I had my druthers, like Crotale, I would prefer a brighter version with more conventional colors ... perhaps something along the lines of this.

T

 

[ibclare]

Tom, that was a great tutorial you made! Thanks. It helps me understand how to use the blend if function in this capacity. As we said in the 70s, right on!

 

[Cinbrat]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my post. I appreciate all of your comments. Unfortunately, I don't have the original (pre-tinting look) image so you could compare the before and after images. I never noticed the change to the colour of the teeth but once it was pointed out, I thought "Not pretty.". Had this been my image, I would have erased the tint on the teeth so that the teeth appeared in their normal colour. Thanks for the info about overlays. Before posting my question, I tried using the method Tom described above but the result wasn't good. Tom, I appreciate all of the work you put into answering my question. I'll work on this more to see if I can get something close to the above image but without those yellow teeth. Geesh, they sure jump out at me now.

 

[Tom Mann]

It's not just the teeth. On a good, well calibrated monitor, their skin looks like they are suffering from jaundice.

Tom