Mike DelGaudio

Picasa has a very convenient one-click effect to create a Sepia tone image. Sepia tone images are great for creating an “old-time” photo effect. It is also nice to use Sepia tone as an alternative to pure black and white images.

You’ll need to get Picasa the photo editing software from Google to complete this tutorial.

In my opinion, the one-click version of Sepia that Picasa creates isn’t perfect.

Here is the one-click Sepia.

The images are too low on contrast, and the Sepia tone isn’t quite right for me. The one-click version is sort of a works-pretty-good-in-most-situations type deal. However, with a little tuning I think we can do better.

Here is the Sepia Tone image we want to get to:

Follow these steps to a better Sepia tone image:

1. First Start with the image you want to sepia tone.
   
2. Use Filtered B&W to create a pleasant B&W image. If there are people in the picture you might choose a yellow or Orange filter to improve skin tones.
   
3. Then apply the sepia filter.
   
4. Switch to the tuning tab, slide the highlights up one quarter of the way, and the shadows up to the mid point — these are approximate. The idea is to have a nice range of tones from deep rich darks to nice bright highlights.
   

5. Switch back to the Effects tab, choose the Saturation effect and slide to the right approximately halfway between full desaturation and the midpoint.

   

Here is a comparison of before and after:



So, My parting questions for you are:
Do you like this kind of higher contrast “sepia”, or is the one-click better?
Can you think of where this kind of effect would work?

[tags]Mike DelGaudio, Picasa, Sepia, photo editing[/tags]