Trying to make the greyscale part of the image match the sepia. Can someone help?

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

Hello you awesomely smarter than me folks.

I am not new to digital photo reotuching / restoration, but have never had luck macthing backgrounds.

I'd like to replace the tone of the greyscale area at the top (North Pole sing, candy canes and wall) to the rest of the sepiatone.

I surely don't want this done for me, but just need a starting point on HOW to do it. 

I saw something in the Neural Filters called "Harmonization," but that didn't seem to work for me (or, and most likely, I had NO idea what I was doing with it.)

Any pointers would be amazing!

Thank you in advance.

Mike

Thank you in advance.

[Semaphoric · Accepted solution]

I would convert it to black and white, and add sepia to that. That way it will be consistent across the image.

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

Unbelievable. Why didn't I think of that? PERFECT! Thank you.

Now that makes me think of others from the past that were in color, but maybe wre cracked and folded and a half of the picture on one side of the crack was faded a bit (or a lot.)

Could you maybe give an eample of how to match those colors?

Thanks again for that perfect tip!

Mike

[mglush]

Hi!

I think Semaphoric's suggestion is a great way to achieve the result you want. Here are a couple of steps that might help you:

1. Use a Black and White Adustment layer to change your image to black and white. Thenk Press Command-Option-Shift +E to create a new layer from all of the visible layers.

2. If you want to give your image a little more detail and contrast, you can take it into the Camera Raw Filter (Command-Shift-A) and increase the Clarity slider. This was somewhere around 47.

\

3. Then, one way to achieve a Sepia effect is to use a Hue/Saturation Adustment Layer. Click the Colorize box at the bottom of the panel and change the Hue, Saturation and Lightness to achieve the result you want. See the image for the settings I used. You can also use a Color Overlay Layer Style and then set the blending mode to Overlay (for a more contrasty look ) or Soft light (Softer look).

Let us know if that helps or if you have any other questions!

Michelle

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

Thank you for the great reply - not sure why I was never notified of this from almost a year ago1

[mglush]

Wow! I am glad you finally received it, and thanks!

Michelle

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

Ha - it only took nearly a year! Not bad. Thanks Microsoft...

I have a similar issue now actually but with a color photo that must have had a frame around it or something.

How in the world do you match the tones, but keeping the color?!?

Thank you in advance and hopefully i'll get the notifcation before 2024! 🙂

Mike

[mglush]

Hi Mike,

Are you familiar with making a feathered selection? You will probably need to do some trial and error, but I think that might be a good option. First, you have a couple of issues happening. Not only the soft edge but also some yellow splotches. Work on getting the overall color correct then you can create a new layer and take out the yellow.

First duplicate the layer. On the duplicate layer make a selection as close as you can to the edge of the faded line, and then go to Select>Modify>Feather and I did 4 pixels, but it will really depend on your resolution. I was just experimenting with the screenshot of your image. Now that you have a feathered selection, choose Layer Mask from the bottom of hte Layers Panel to add a mask to your duplicated layer. This will allow you to see the deeper original color that was hidden underneath the matt. You should now see a white box, wth a black border on the Layer mask that kind of fits your faded area.

Then create an Adjustment Layer with Curves, and drag the point in the bottom left corner over to about 75. It could be a little more or less, but that is what gave me the result you see below.

When you are happy with the color, Press Cmd+Option+Shift-E to create a merged copy of all your layers. Doing this will allow you to work with the Stamp tool and clone areas of the original area over the border and eliminate the edge.

To get rid of the yellow, I tried a couple of differnt options like adding an Adjustment layer and using Hue and Saturation to adjust the color, and in some cases it worked ok. But in others it looked terrible. I think I would recommend duplicating the layer and using the Stamp tool to just clean up the yellow spots.

Here is the sample of what I did:

It will take some work, but I think you can get a pretty good result. Let me know if you have any questions!

Michelle 🙂

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

I got notified immedaitely! It's a miracle! (I shouldn't have typed that out loud...)

Thank you for that great tip I will surely give it a try.

And I am familiar with feathered selections. 🙂

Mike