Sepia filters

jim44 · Sep 1, 2009

A friend years ago took some portraits that looked like they were 100 years old. This was pre-digital. Can the same effect be gotten from just a sepia filter? If so, are there different sepia filters? Thanks for any info.

Plato · Sep 1, 2009

jim44 said:
A friend years ago took some portraits that looked like they were 100 years old. This was pre-digital. Can the same effect be gotten from just a sepia filter? If so, are there different sepia filters? Thanks for any info.

Why would you want to use a filter with a digital camera?

feRRari4756 · Sep 1, 2009

now you can just recreat that sepia effect on almost any modern photo editing programs

Garbz · Sep 2, 2009

Sepia was done in post processing if I remember correctly. Did your friend develop his own film? Or ask his lab to develop in speia?

c.cloudwalker · Sep 2, 2009

Never done sepia myself but if I remember correctly it was done at the print level. Don't know if there is such a thing as a sepia filter but it can be done in pp which is better anyway.

Plato · Sep 2, 2009

c.cloudwalker said:
Never done sepia myself but if I remember correctly it was done at the print level. Don't know if there is such a thing as a sepia filter but it can be done in pp which is better anyway.

There were sepia filters back in the film days but I don't know how well they worked.

Torus34 · Sep 2, 2009

Sepia toning was and is a simple process of chemically altering the image of a b&w print. It is alive and well, thank you. Works best with the warm-tone papers. Selective toning of the image can produce interesting effects.

Digitally, you would go about it by going from a full-color image to something approaching b&w and then adding back in a brownish hue.

JerryPH · Sep 2, 2009

As Torus34 said, true sepia was done in the post process back in the digital days, however, there was a light brown filter that weakly worked some, back in the film days.

Today, this is totally useless. With post processing, one can do a million variations of sepia in post process to taste.

jim44 · Sep 2, 2009

Thanks for all the info. I use Photoshop but haven't been able to figure out how to accomplish the sepia effect. If all the color is removed, that's the ball game.