But getting back to the Sepia effect.It is one of those effects that most people will say "What can be that hard at it?".Well I'm telling you there is nothing hard about it.The only limit is your creativity.With an effect so over used like Sepia you have to get a little creative to get an effect that is a little bit different and more interesting that most of the sepias you see out there.It is really not about the methods,it is about the outcome.Most of the great looking images out there are not the result of one adjustment or filter applied,they are the result of a combination of adjustments or filters and maybe local adjustments.So here is how mine is put together.
Yes we can argue about how this does not look that different of most sepias you have seen,but it is a combination of adjustments that allowed me to be more creative,and helped me achieve a result that looks more cool then if I would have applied a brown tone to it only.Oh! And I did replace the sky as well.I figured a more cloudy sky would look great with this image.I will write one about replacing the sky in the near future.
The first thing that I did was to hit ctrl+J.That will duplicate my image,so now I have two copies sitting on top of each other.I set the blend mode of the duplicate on soft light.It is a nice and quick method of increasing contrast.
In the adjustment panel that pops up I dragged the vibrance slider to the left to decrease the saturation of the over saturated colors.It ends up creating a nice effect.
Next I created a Black and White adjustment layer.You can create it the same way as the vibrance adjustment but this time you have to choose Black and White from the pop up.And this is my favorite method to add the brown sepia tint to an image.If you check the tint radio button and double click the tint color swatch the color picker will pop up.From there you can choose what ever color you would like to add to the image.I went with a dark brown.With the color sliders I can adjust what lightness level gets assigned to each main color in the image.That means I can assign a dark gray to the reds or a light gray if I want too.So a heck of a lot of control just from this panel.This is why it is my favorite method.So you can see that I played around with the color sliders as well.You could use that hand tool in the upper left corner of the panel to drag straight on the image to adjust the luminance levels.Dragging to the left on an area of the image will make those tones darker dragging to the right will make them brighter.This way you don't have to guess which slider will affect that area more.
Next I added a curves adjustment layer to add even more contrast to the image.You ca do that by placing nodes on the diagonal line.That means clicking on the line will add a node.The down left end of the line represent black,the upper right end white.The rest all all the other luminosity levels in between black and white.Clicking and dragging those nodes to the right will darken the tones from that area,dragging them to the left will brighten.You can also use the pencil tool from the panel to draw the curve or use the hand tool to drag on the image itself.
And finally I added a photo filter adjustment.Here is the only place in Photoshop where you will see the name sepia.It is a preset that adds a brown tint to an image.But I never use it.I used the Cooling filter (LBB) from the preset drop down.I wanted to add a subtle bluish tint.And in my opinion it makes the image look better.And tho it has a bluish tint as well now I guess there won't be anybody saying "Hey,this is a split toned image not a sepia!"
