How To Make A Sepia Toned Image in Adobe Photoshop Elements
00:00 From Vintage Photographs
00:05 Sepia-Toned Images
00:08 What is Sepia Photography?
00:16 Monochromatic Colour Tones
00:23 How Sepia Differs from Black & White
00:29 The Science Behind Sepia Toning
00:39 Why Sepia Toning Was Used
00:54 Sepia’s Role in Preserving Photos
01:10 Sepia & Nostalgia in Art
01:21 Creating a Gradient Map in Photoshop
01:34 Customising Your Gradient
01:52 Understanding Hue, Saturation & Brightness
02:18 RGB Colour Mixing Explained
02:26 Assigning Colours to Tonal Values
02:34 Adding & Adjusting Colour Stops
02:50 Creating a Sepia-Tone Effect
03:01 Saving Your Gradient Preset
03:11 Exporting Your Final Image
03:25 Editing More Gradient Maps
From vintage photographs in an antique shop to artistic prints in a gallery, sepia-toned images are instantly recognisable.
Sepia photography is similar to black and white photography as it is monochromatic, meaning it consists of a single tone or colour.
While traditional black and white photographs rely on a grayscale spectrum of highlights and shadows, sepia-toned images use warm reddish-brown hues to achieve a similar effect.
Technically, sepia toning is a chemical process that transforms the metallic silver in a photographic print emulsion into a silver sulfide compound.
This changes the colour of the resulting image and makes the photo more resistant to environmental pollutants.
This helps photos hold up over time.
Artists can apply this technique to evoke memories or instill a sense of nostalgia in their audience.
Because sepia toning was used to preserve photographic prints over time, many surviving historical images feature this characteristic warm tone.
To create a sepia effect in Photoshop, click "Layer" and scroll down to "New Adjustment Layer."
Select "Gradient Map" from the list and click "OK."
A Gradient Map adjustment layer in Photoshop is a tool that changes the colours of an image into a gradient.
It can also be used to convert images to black and white.
Click the gradient bar to edit the Gradient Map.
To create a custom gradient, adjust the colour stops by selecting new colours for highlights, mid tones, and shadows.
To select a colour stop, click on it.
A colour picker window will appear, allowing you to choose a new colour.
A hue is another word for colour.
Saturation is how strong or faded the colour looks—0% makes it gray, and 100% makes it fully vibrant.
Brightness in HSB refers to how light or dark a colour is—0% brightness makes the colour completely black, while 100% brightness shows the colour at its fullest and most vivid.
Red, green, and blue are mixed in values from 0 to 255 to produce different colours.
Copy all of these numbers to determine the colours assigned to this particular tonal value.
Click "OK" when you have done this.
To add a new colour stop, click just below the gradient bar where you want the new colour to appear.
Adjust its position by dragging it left or right, or change the location number to 52.
Add the right stops and colour values to create a sepia tone.
Now you need to save the preset.
Change its name to "Sepia 1" so you can easily locate it in the future.
Once satisfied, click "Add to Preset" to save the custom gradient for future use.
Click "OK" when you have done this.
You need to save this completed edit as a JPEG image.
To make more gradient maps, click the "Edit Adjustment" button, then click the gradient bar to edit the Gradient Map.