Sepia Filter

Drop your photos into the form: they instantly take on warm sepia tones. The curtain over the preview shows the before and after.

Where sepia comes from

Sepia is a pigment made from cuttlefish ink. In photography the word names the brown tone of old prints: in the late 19th and early 20th century, prints were toned with solutions that turned the silver into a more stable compound, so the image became brown and faded less. That is where the warm shade of family album photos comes from.

Settings

• Tone strength — from a gray photo with no tint to rich sepia. Shadows and highlights stay clean; the midtones take the color.
• Keep color — blends the original colors back in: at 30–50% the photo stays colored but warm and muted.
• Vintage photo effect — fading, dark edges and grain, each on its own or all together.

The same sepia lives in the black and white photo tool, with brightness, contrast and a cold tone added on top.