Sepia Filter: Give Any Photo a Warm Brown Tone

How do I add a sepia filter to a photo?

Press Choose a picture, drop a file or paste one, and the sepia version shows at once. Drag Strength to taste, press Apply sepia and then Save picture. The saved file keeps your photo's full size, and everything runs in your browser, so the picture is never uploaded.

1. Press Choose a picture, drop a file, or paste one with Ctrl+V.
2. The sepia tone shows right away. Press and hold the eye button to compare with the original.
3. Drag Strength: 100 percent is full sepia, lower values keep more of the original color.
4. Press Apply sepia, open Export and press Save picture.

What is the formula behind a sepia filter?

Sepia mixes the red, green and blue values of each pixel through a fixed matrix. Red becomes 0.393 R + 0.769 G + 0.189 B, green 0.349 R + 0.686 G + 0.168 B and blue 0.272 R + 0.534 G + 0.131 B, then values are capped at 255. This is the matrix in the W3C Filter Effects specification.

Each row of the matrix adds to more than 1 for red and green, so light tones clip at 255 in those channels, while the blue row adds to 0.937, which is why white ends up slightly yellow rather than pure white.

How do I make a sepia photo look natural?

Keep the strength between 50 and 80 percent so some original color shows through, then add a soft vignette and a little extra contrast. The Fade and Matte looks in Filters give the lifted blacks of an old print. Full strength looks flat on photos that were already low in contrast.

Strength is a straight blend with the original: at 50 percent the brown 120, 60, 30 becomes 109, 74, 49, halfway to the full sepia result of 99, 88, 69. Apply sepia, then open Adjust to add a vignette of -20 to -40.

What is the difference between sepia and black and white?

Black and white removes all color, leaving neutral grays. Sepia keeps one warm brown hue and varies its brightness, so highlights look cream and shadows stay dark. Sepia also shifts every color toward brown, which black and white does not. Choose sepia for an aged print look and black and white for a neutral one.

To compare both on the same photo, apply black and white, press undo and try sepia; each is one undo step. See Black and White Photo for the gray conversion with channel mixes.