What is Sepia Tool?
Have you ever come across some photos and wondered what magical effect has been applied to the original image. There are many tools and techniques so as to modify an image but sepia has always been a favourite of everyone. Sepia word has been inherited from mollusks, which is brownish red pigment used as ink during the earlier era of colored writings. So in short we can say that it is a mixture of different shades of brown and is a marvelous texture when applied to an image. The monochrome effect, as a brownish texture pushes the image time frame back to the good old days.This effect has been flooding the image market for over a decade and still, it is loved and adored by all of us.
How to apply Sepia Effect to an Image
Initially it was a long term process of applying imagery softwares to render this effect but with the advent of modern day camera and digital cams, many of these gadgets comes pre-loaded with this effect, even there are many online websites which let you directly upload you photo and instantly apply this elegant effect. The most famous of all is the Photoshop editing tool which provides you with a broad range of flexibility option and hence the required effects can efficiently be applied with more desirable output results.
Sepia Effect with your Camera
Find the Menu Option in your digital camera and locate Effects Options and select it before taking a snap. Now you will see that the monochrome effect has taken over in your Display and as soon as you click your camera applies Sepia effect and save the photograph. The only thing it lacks is the more broad options such as color orientation, color depth and more sub categories as the ones found in offline application for photo editing. Do remember one thing, do not used digital zoom while taking the photograph as this will make your image go blurred !!
Sepia Effect Online
There are over hundred of websites available, which directly allow you to upload your image to their site and edit it. You can chose from over variety of effects available in their option panel and edit them as per your requirement. In order to apply Sepia effect to you image in such websites you need to first upload the image for editing. After you have uploaded the image search for Sepia Tone in the option menu. Click Apply effect and save your image. After you are done editing find the button to save it your hard drive and you are done applying sepia effect.
Websites which I personally like/came across are:
Sepia effect photoshop
Photoshop has many tools and apps on its kit that adds a jewel to it. I have previously discused some of the tools here and today we are going to learn about a very beautiful effect called “Sepia”. Photoshop provides this tool to give a color free effect and if required add our own color variation style to the image. It is easy to use and you can easily apply this filter to your image.
Loading Your Image to Photoshop
- Start Photoshop
- click “Open” Image
- Browse through the image location. Select it and press Ok.
Create a Copy to work
- Select the image on the right hand side panel.
- Right click and select duplicate layer
- Enter the name of the copy file and press OK
Now we are ready to apply the sepia filter to our image inside photoshop.
Now go to
- Image –> Adjustments –> Desaturate.
Doing this we have shredded all the color pixels and have converted our image to a grayscale format.
- Now choose Layer –> New adjustment Layer –> Photo Filter.
A new dialogue box will pop out and use the following options:
Opacity: 100 percent
Mode: Normal
Colour: None
Press Ok and then anther photoshop filter dialogue box will pop up. Just use the instructions mentioned below:
Select Filter: Sepia
Density: 69% (You can change it to your requirement)
Preserve Luminosity: Selected
Click Ok and Sepia effect has been applied to your image.
Another Method to apply sepia tone in photoshop Elements:
This is just a basic method of applying the look alike effects of Sepia. You can also use different color combinations for different results.
One can experiment with different color variations to achieve more desirable sepia effects.
Half Sepia Effects
You might be thinking about what is the difference between Sepia and Half Sepia. Well the only difference is that Sepia a monochrome effect whereas half Sepia is a combination of two or more colors added to the basic monochrome image.
This tonig method requires your image to be of high saturation. It is not suitable for images with lower saturated exposures. So if you have an image to edit with such situation the first step would be to add Hue/Saturation to it.
From Layers palette, Select the 
option and then choose Hue/Saturation
option and then choose Hue/Saturation
Now on the hue-Sturation tool Enter the following Credentials after selecting the colorize options which is available near the right botton side of the tool box.
Now we have easily applied the bright sepia tone to our Image. After this we will apply Half-sepia effect to this image. In order to do it we must edit the layer mask available of the edited Hue-saturation adjustment layer. Just note that the layer mask is selected by clicking the thumbnail image in the layer pallet.
Image courtesy: photoshoptutorials.ws
Now select the image and then Apply Image. We will be using the default settings here.You need to select the invert image option. Now if you want to have the effect visible only throught out the brighter portions of your image you will have to leave it unchecked but for applying the effect to the other areas with lesser bright effects select the Invert check box. Selecting this is just a vice-versa option for applying our effect. Here, for our example we need to select the invert image option.
Almost done but still we will adding an adjustment layer. From the layer pallete select the button and from there select the Black & white Option. This option is unavailable in lower versions of photoshop (Version CS2 or earlier). For such version you should work with channel mixer.
button and from there select the Black & white Option. This option is unavailable in lower versions of photoshop (Version CS2 or earlier). For such version you should work with channel mixer.
Now for the selected options either channel mixer adjustment layer or the black and white you need to change its blending property to Soft Light.
Now click twice on the channel mixer adjustment layer or the black and white adjustment layer to restore back the setting. Adjust the effects as desired. Please note for CS2 or lower versions select the monochrome check box option.
This is the final outcome of the above image after applying the aforesaid effects.
If you have any more queries regarding Sepia or Half sepia toning, feel free to mail me your queries at our contact us page. Enjoy.
