JessicaSprague.com

This tutorial is useful, functional, foolproof, and easy. How many things in life can you say THAT about, huh?
We are going to have an adventure in Black and White, as well as in Sepia. And basically this means you’ll learn a great method for GREAT black and white conversion, and for changing that black and white to a sepia, and ALL without touching our original photo. The secret? Adjustment layers.

1. Open your photo.
2. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map
If you’re in Elements, your whole image might turn white at this point. Don’t panic.
3. Click in the gradient itself to edit. (That’s the big white or gradient bar inside the popup, like this).
  

The gradient dialog appears.Choose the black-to-white gradient, which is third from the left on the top row. Like this:

 
Your image turns black and white. (Yay!)But we still have a problem. The image, because it started out dark, is very flat and washed out. Let’s fix it by boosting the white.
1. Drag the bottom right slider (the white one) over to the left. You can see the white in your image brightening, bringing out detail and adding contrast. Slide this slider until you get a result you’re happy with. It’ll differ for every image, but it might look something like this:

 

2. (If your image started out too bright or you’d like to add some more dark hues, slide the black slider (bottom left) toward the right until you get enough shadow.
3. Click OK in the gradient editor.
4. Click OK in the gradient map dialog.

Here is what my image looked like after applying the gradient map adjustment layer.

 

The coolest part about this conversion, is that if you aren’t happy, rather than throwing your image away and starting over, you can simply double-click on the gradient map thumbnail in the layers palette to edit the gradient. This is called non-destructive editing, and yay! It saves time and headaches.

(p.s. if you want to see some really funky colors, try applying a few of the other gradients in the editor, or making some of your own. Just for kicks, of course. :))

Okay, on to the next piece. I think Julie’s photo could use the softness of a sepia tone. So we’re going to add that next.

Adding a Sepia Tone

If you are working in Photoshop 7, CS, or CS2, you can change your image mode to Grayscale and then to Duotone and pick from a wide array of pre-made duotones and tritones. It’s a great way to kill an hour or two, and they have some awesome combinations.

This, on the other hand, is the quick-and-easy way to add a sepia tone in any version of Photoshop.

Open the photo you’d like to add the sepia to. (You don’t have to convert it to black and white first, but I recommend following the gradient map adjustment layer above to get really nice contrast in the tones.)

1. Open the photo you’d like to add the sepia to. (You don’t have to convert it to black and white first, but I recommend following the gradient map adjustment layer above to get really nice contrast in the tones.)
2. If you are working in the photo you just converted, make sure you have the top layer selected in your layers palette before moving on, so you can ensure that the next layer you create goes on top of the stack.
3. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation
4. Click the Colorize checkbox in the popup.
5. Set the top value to 25, the middle value to 15, and leave the bottom value where it is. You can adjust the middle value to anywhere between 4-17 and get a very nice sepia tone.
6. And that’s it!

Here is my end result, side-by-side with the original.

 

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Comments (5)

Tamara Davis: ...

So Great! This is perfect for a photo shoot we did of my daughter last week. I picked the first photo I saw, her walking up the stairs. It was a photo I didn't even like so I wasn't afraid to play with it. Now I love it!! I can't wait to try this on photos I love to begin with.

1

May 10, 2009

Lisa Whelpley: ...

Interesting that some things can be done multiple ways, it appears. I love how some photos really get crisper in black and white.

2

July 19, 2009

Julia: ... http://julesgphotography.blogspot.com

awesome. very helpful! thanx.

3

September 07, 2009

Julie Horner: ... http://papiercreatif.blogspot.com

Hi Jessica!

Another great tutorial - good information. Here are 3 photos I did using the technique -- http://papiercreatif.blogspot....oogie.html

These photos were taken for my daughter's best friend & fiance. I offered to do engagement photos for them as a gift. This tutorial really helped polish the photo & provided another option for sepia tone, similar to the one from your Frame Ups class.

I love that you post these so I have them to refer to again! It doesn't sink in until I do the exercises a few times!

U Rock, Jessica!

4

September 23, 2009

Lee Harker: ...

Best of all is that you cand make all the changes in layers, then by hiding or unhiding layers you can flip back and forth between color/black and white/sepia and decide which one you like best!
Love your stuff Jessica
Lee

5

February 01, 2010