Mini turorial-Sepia toning...a better way

[Matt. K]

When you sepia tone a black and white photograph the toner does not affect the image evenly. It bites more in the midtones, and less in the shadows…the following technique gives a natural, traddional tone to a black and white digital image.

1. Convert your grayscale image to RGB
2. Select a colour from the swatches that you wish to use for the tone colour. It is not vital to get the correct colour at this stage…just somewhere in the ball park
3. Copy the image to a new layer (Control + J) Change blending mode to COLOUR
4. EDIT/FILL/FOREGROUND COLOUR..fills your image with your chosen colour
5. IMAGE/CALCULATIONS/ change both channels to (grey) and MODE to NORMAL
6. SELECT/LOAD SELECTION
7. IMAGE/ADJUST LEVELS…move left slider to start of histogram
8. WIMDOW/CHANNELS…choose top level
9. IMAGE/DESATURATE
10. LAYERS/FLATTEN IMAGE
11. CONTRL+D to deselect marching ants
12. IMAGE/ADJUSTMENTS/HUE-SATURATION…adjust hue to your liking
13. Any other touch-up to the image that you think helps.

The effects are subtle and change depending on the tones in your image,
Sample included.
Hope this is useful
http://www.pbase.com/matt_k/image/36211436
http://www.pbase.com/matt_k/image/36211547

[phillipb]

Hey Matt, great tip, but if I may ask you, where was the flash placed in the photo of the "boy"? It's obviously on the right due to the highlights and the shadows, but why do you only see the catchlight in one eye?

Cheers
Phillip

[Matt. K]

No flash used. Taken by the light of a large window. Large windows produce the best light for portraits IMHO. I think my body blocked the light from the second eye.
Thanks for looking.

[joolz]

Thanks Matt,
Interesting sepia technique.
Did you come up with that technique, or did you learn it from somewhere?
I am not sure if I am doing your method correctly, but it seems, it doesn't give me very different results from my usual sepia methods:

1. Channel mixer layer with monochrome selected (I usually use R70 G20 B10 for portraits)
Then either:

A.
Solid colour layer (colour adjustable to taste later)
Change Colour layer's mode to overlay
On background layer select luminosity (ctrl-shift-alt and ~) (I call this the clawhand)
On colour layer's mask fill selection with background colour ie black (ctrl-backspace)
Deselect selection (ctrl-D)

or B.
Colour balance layer (I tend to use red & yellow +30, 0, -40)

You can also do these without layers, but I find I can go back and adjust things more easily if they are layers.
YMMV

Joolz

[Matt. K]

joolz
This is a technique that I picked up in some PS book. Like real sepia toning it work better on some images than others.

[dooda]

I generally convert using adjustment layers. Channel mixer for Black and white, and sepia using the Hue Sat adj layer. Hue to about 30 and saturation to the right to taste. Works for me.