Sepia Tutorial

Jan 27, 2009 23:16

Whilst making some John Barrymore icons, I hit upon an interesting sepia-ish colorizing effect for B&W images, and I thought I'd share. :) It's all done with color layers, so it's extremely easy.


1. We begin at the beginning, of course--the base. This should be a black-and-white image. Here's the original one I used for this effect, which features John Barrymore. (Looking exactly like an angsty Fredric March, which is messing with my head a little... but I digress.)



2. Add a layer filled with #C38747, and set it to Soft Light at 100% opacity. Result:



3. Add a layer filled with #4FB8BB, and set it to Darken at 30% opacity. Result:



4. Add a layer filled with #CCB79C, and set it to Soft Light at 50% opacity. Result:



4. Add a layer filled with #07394B, and set it to Lighten at 60% opacity. Result:



5. Merge the layers. Duplicate the image, and set it as a new layer on Soft Light. Depending on the opacity, your icon can have a soft or sharp contrast; these examples respectively have it set at 20% and 100%.




To show you how the effect looks on both light and dark images, here are a couple more finished examples:




This effect strikes me as being particularly good for silent film stars, but with variations, it should work nicely for any black-and-white image. I hope some of you will find it useful!

john barrymore, tutorials

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