How to Make Digital Photos Look Old-Fashioned and/or Sepia Toned

Sometimes people like to give their pictures an antique appearance. While black and white toning may pass off as old fashioned styling, it is sepia toning that gives a photograph a truly antique look.

The word Sepia has a Greek origin and denotes a mollusk from which a reddish brown pigment was derived in the old days to use as ink. Over half a century ago, in the process of developing prints, black and white photographs were treated with chemicals that left behind a sepia-like reddish brown tint over time.

Sepia toned photos are quite popular for aesthetics in modern times and even with modern digital photography and digital printing, you can have your collection of sepia toned photos.

Here is a guide on how to make photos look old fashioned in digital photography. There are two approaches you can choose from - you can shoot sepia toned pictures if your digital camera is equipped with appropriate filters. Alternatively, you can use simple picture-editing software to alter the colors in a color or black and white picture to get a sepia tint.

Check if your digital camera has a sepia filter listed under the color settings. Depending on your camera, you may be able to even preview your scene in sepia tone before shooting. Some camera models internally process a color picture and allow you to view the sepia toned picture only after you shoot. In either case, to get a good picture, you must make sure you set a high enough resolution to capture all the details in the scene. Avoid digital zoom if you can, as it affects the resolution of the picture. If you need a flash, use high shutter speeds to capture your imagery. You could use the camera's automatic exposure and focus settings if you are unsure of optimal lighting and shutter speed settings. Use a low noise setting by picking a high ISO number on your camera - this controls the device's sensitivity to light. use the 'raw' option rather than the JPEG format to capture the photos - this provides raw images that do not undergo internal processing, compression, saturation, etc.

If your camera does not let you generate sepia tones photos, use software such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw to process the photo once transferred to your computer. The trick is to have a predominantly red component and a minimal blue component in the altered photo. You should be able to tweak the RGB or hue and saturation settings to give your photo the old-fashioned look. The picture-editing software manual should provide you instructions on how to set this up. Configuring the software should not take more than a few minutes even for a beginner.

Practice is the only way to perfection. So explore your digital camera settings and software to get the best sepia toned photos.