From old color snapshots to Sepia

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froptop

CGF, Certified Grumble Framer
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I am planning a family photo wall over my sofa. I've gone through hundreds of new, old, and older color snapshots and digital images as well. The finished pieces will be framed in various sizes in different but complimentary frames, salon style, some with mats, some with spacers,complete with museum glass. I want them to be sepia-toned to create a unified, artistic presentation.

-I've scanned them at 300 dpi on my dell all-in-one on the color photo setting.
-Used IrfanView/Sepia (It's a free download, many features like photoshop)
-Looked good on moniter. Sent my digital result for photo processing in several stores, with results ranging from orange to green tint, not the warm, lovely brownish tone I started with.(I should get a refund - they're really way off)
-made many edit adjustments; mainly decreased saturation, increased contrast, used sharpen and median filter; various combos of all of the above. Still, color isn't right, and not good clarity.
-also tried my own printer (same as above) with high quality matte and gloss paper. straight lines looked digitized, not as crisp as i would like, but color was very good. Overall, not bad....
-even had original photos copied by printing service with sepia setting; bad color and not clear.

How to get the best quality sepia result with prints up to 8x10, starting with color photos?? They are a varied lot and I'm not expecting the final version to miraculously be clearer than the original.

-does this require a good quality 'photo' home printer? Must print 8x10. What's the best paper, matte or gloss?
-is there some trick to manipulating my image before having photo processing?
-is there a 'magic formula' using photo editing with or w/o Photoshop regarding special filters? color adjustments? doing certain functions in a certain order?
-i've even thought of starting with a good b&w, which is much easier than achieving a good sepia and then hand-color my final sepia result, which i've played with in the past. i've used hand-color oils, and pencils made especially for that or even techniques using water-color and water-color pencils.(

Eight years, framing everyone elses' kids; First time, for mine! Childbirth was easier than this project is turning out to be.....Will appreciate any advice to make my family picture wall look fabulous!

Thanks, Amy
ps. Here in NJ, the weather could not be more beautiful!!
 
If the photos varied alot, maybe it was their problem. But if your monitor isn't profiled, how do you know it wasn't your monitor that was fouled up?

I think most photographers find a processor they jive with and never go anyplace else. You may be in that process right now.

I think Epson is selling some really nice consumer printers for a song and dance. You may consider that and experiment away.

No two people have the same photoshop workflow. I'm not sure you will get any agreement about which order to do what.

I do a bit of printing along with many others here. I'll help if I can and you have a more specific question.
 
Because most retail photo places are dealing in volume, there is often a sacrifice in quality. Color is one of the most common problems people have with these labs.

For us to get good quality, accurate color from the professional lab we use, we need to have our monitor calibrated to the same standard as theirs so what we see matches what they see on the files. If what we send them is off colorwise, they will adjust it for us so it looks good. I don't think most retail, high volume labs will do this. Maybe you can find a professional lab in your area or a photographer who uses one who can send your photos in for you and make sure they get the color right.

As far as the crispness of the images/digitized look, the scanning may be the problem. I'm not familiar with the scanner you are using but I've heard that all-in-one scanners don't produce as good a quality as scanners only scan. That may be why some of the images lack crispness. Also, some of the auto sharpen functions actually create a digitized look to the lines in a photo. There are better ways to sharpen, but they require more work and some times special filters/plug-ins to get good results.

Not sure if any of this helped, but good luck with your project. It sounds interesting.
 
Digital Custom can convert your images to Sepia and produce high quality prints. It's not expensive.
:cool: Rick
 
Any,

If you are opening, changing and re-saving jpeg images you can loose quality because of the repeated compression and decompression. It may pay to start over and work with a non compression image format like .tiff or Photoshop .psd. When your done, save once as a jpeg for printing. I like to desaturate and manipulate everything in B & W . I then apply the sepia corrections at the printing stage.

Getting sepia just right is a difficult effect in photographic printing. In the lab we operate we do not guarantee a perfect match for sepia . This was true in the film days and is also true with digital. Color management tools help but in the end we simply do repeated tests until we like what we see.

Doug
 
Most labs use an auto color setting that "make your image better" Take them back and tell them to run them as they are and to make no color adjustments. I will bet ya a bud that you will be happier with the results.

Dave
 
Photos need to be scan at least at 300 Pixels per inch for the final output size. Most photo printers print at 300-325 Pixels per inch. Most people can see some where between 150-250 pixels per inch. An 8x10 then would need to have 2400 x3000 pixels per inch. A 4x6 print to be printed as an 8x10 should have been set at around 600-800 pixels per inch as at the original size. Many scanners will let you set the final output size and pixels per inch up front e.g. 8x10 at 300 pixels per inch. Too many people do not scan at high enough resolution but simple scan at 300 pixels per inch for the whole original size.
 
A couple of points:
Sepia is a real drag to print consistently. Some people think orange-ish, some yellowish, some brownish.... It makes it tough to be consistent. The Sepia filter you're applying may also have something to do with it, esp. if your're going color>sepia.
I agree with the idea on going color>BW>sepia. It might be more consistent. You ight also try coming up with your own formula through using a tri-tone or quad-tone setting. In Photoshop from a color image: IMAGE>MODE>GRAYSCALE discard color MODE>DUOTONE. Pick a color set that creates the look you want. A color recipe I use for sepia is tritone - BLACK+Pantone 7516c+Pantone 124c.

The color profile thing is another issue. Your monitor probably DOESN'T match the lab's monitor. Not even close. If they're applying "image intelligence" (a Fuji Frontier term) you're also getting color and sharpness adjustments you might not want (it's the likely source of your "jaggies"). Use and experiment with UnSharp Mask in PS and let the lab know to turn OFF any color corrections. You might not be perfect but you'll know how to correct.

Be sure to NOT use the CMYK color - that's for offset printing, not what you're doing - that could be another source of your color shifts. After your tweaks go back to RGB color

What size originals are you working from? A 3x5-ish original should print a fine 8x10 at the scanning settings you described. If your original is much smaller you may need to adjust.

As Jay said - Epson has some really nice home printers for under $100 that will do the trick. Look for an R280 or R380 for good, cheap photo printer that'll do 4x6 to 8x10 prints. Stick with the mfrs. paper - not store brand stuff. Ilford (Pearl finish)makes for a beautiful print on just about any printer, with good longevity

Finally - pick a lab that seems knowledgeable and willing to work with you. STICK WITH THEM until they get it right - a good one will work with you.


Tony
 
Scanning resolution is based on the amount of enlargement you need. If you use a 300 dpi file to print then you would scan a 4x6 at 300 dpi if you were going to print another 4x6 but if you wanted to print an 8x10 you would scan the original 4x6 at 600 dpi and if you wanted a 16x20 you would scan the original 4x6 at 1200 dpi.

The "native" resolution for an Epson printer is 360 dpi - it prints in multiples of 360 ....... 720 - 1440 - 2880. It's best if your print file after sizing the image is 360 DPI.

Sepia is difficult as there is no standard. A great sepia tone is very subtle. In the old days of real photography we made a black and white print and then bleached it which depending on how much bleaching you gave it removed the light gray tones, the middle gray tones, but not the deep blacks. The blacks remained black but the middle and light gray areas were dyed sepia which was a grayish brown. The red/rust tones that most software produces is nothing like a real sepia print. To get a real looking sepia you need to use layers in Photoshop to simulated the bleach and dye process of the old days. The bottom layer would have the darker black areas and the top layer would be browns in the mid tones and lighter areas. I suggest you get an old sepia print - there's lots on ebay -and use it for a reference. But you'll have to get one you like as even in the old days there were many variations of "sepia".

My Epson 4000 printer software gives me the option of choosing "sepia" when I print - it's awfull!

My prolab doesn't really care what color my files are - they color correct on their calibrated monitors and print "correct" color prints just like they used to from my negatives and slides. That's what a quality prolab does. Should I have some special color situation I will add notes to my order telling them what I expect. A sepia print order results in my sending them a print in sepia as I want it with the digital file - how else would they know, it can't be written in words.
 
I am overwhelmed by all the knowledgeable and constructive suggestions so far. Sunday is my next day off and I'm giving my family fair warning: this computer is mine! This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for and the more the better. Oh, how I love the Grumble...

By the way, Dave - Bud?? I'm sure you meant to say Guiness, right?

Amy
 
Rather than rely on the automatic convert to sepia controls, I developed a Photoshop “Action” that basically takes an RGB image, converts it to Grayscale then rebuild the colors in the Quadtone series to what I think resemble an old sepia image then returns it to RGB again.

The final step in the action gives you the option to tweak the density and color just a little, so you can essentially customize the final colors to your liking.

The nice thing about any action is that it is allows you bail out and try again repeatedly after having fiddled with some of the controls. It saves a lot of grunt work especially if you’re doing multiple images.

If you’re interested, email me and I can send the action to you. It should work on any version of Photoshop greater than 7.
 
One simple option is to copy the photos using film, make real B&W prints and sepia tone them using traditional methods. It is pretty easy to do.
 
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