Trying to add a sepia effect - advice needed

[dlegros]

Originally Posted by soldave

Dom - that one looks really antique. Very nice. It gives a very different effect to my manual sepia one, but I like them both.

Cheers Dave,

I always think that a key to "antiqueing' images, that fading is key as photo pigments fade normally.

Dom

[big_si]

Originally Posted by soldave

Haha! I wish I knew 25% of what Photoshop could do. I followed this tutorial pretty much:

Alexander Sperl / Dorky Design > Teaching > Photoshop Advanced Tutorials > Making a New Image Look Old

That's great! Thanks! I'm trying it out on all my photos now! Much appreciated! Green blob coming your way!

[mke]

Definitely prefer your manual sepia over the auto. Old photos are often lacking in contrast (or may be faded as Dom has said) - try reducing the contrast after your manual sepia adjustment?

Mike

[dlegros]

Originally Posted by mke

Definitely prefer your manual sepia over the auto. Old photos are often lacking in contrast (or may be faded as Dom has said) - try reducing the contrast after your manual sepia adjustment?

Mike

That can all be done with the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

The advantage of using layers is that you leave the original image untouched - the downside is they consume memory.

Dom

[big_si]

If anyone else is interested in using the sepia and colour correction techniques in photoshop you can download the actions from me so you don't have to record them all. (Right click on the link and choose 'Save As')

http://www.mondaydiveclub.co.uk/Underwater.atn


Just save the file in folder

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Photoshop Actions

In Photoshop go to the Actions window and click on the little triangle in the top right (just below the close X)

Choose 'Load Actions' and select the file name that. They will then be available for you! Hoorah!


I've recorded them in version CS2 but I've no idea whether this will make a difference?

HTH

Si

[copperband]

Great pics...advice seems to be sorted so thought I'd just post my efforts...

1) Sepia only




2) More sepia





3)Sepia and noise





Hope you don't mind but I like having a mess with photos to see if they can be improved.


Paul

[soldave]

Of course I don't mind you messing around It's great to see what peoplle come up with.

The issue I had with my manual editing of the sepia was that the ocean above the wreck itself was becoming too light & I wanted it to remain a little darker. If people are interested, I'll post some other pics of the wreck on my site so you can have a play around. Let me know.

dlegros - I'm fumbling around with the Hue/saturation layer and can't get anything that looks vaguely like a sepia effect. Can you give me an idea on what values I should be using? I really want to make my own full-size copy of that image you edited and get it printed out.

[dlegros]

Have you checked the "Colorize" Box?

I tend to start by moving the Hue slider until I get a reasonable starting place, then use Saturation and Lightness to fade the image.

Dom

[soldave]

OK - here's my latest attempt:



BTW - dlegros - what do you mean by a white vignette on a white layer? I can find a vignette in CS2 but it appears to go from white to grey

[dlegros]

For the vignette.

Add a blank layer and fill it with white.
Select an area of the image (I used about 50px in on all sides)
Feather (IIRC I used 50 pixels on that shot) the selection
From the Layer menu, select the Layer Mask-> Hide Selection
Then adjust the layer transparency to get the desired effect.

HTH

If unclear, let me know and I'll make an action out of it and email it.

Dom