Sepia - is there a 'standard' sepia tone or does it vary?

[Scatterbrain]

I recently took some photographs of a baby girl and have been asked to product two large prints from the shoot in sepia. The family have two sepia prints of their eldest daughter already and would like to hang them together.

Some sepia images appear very orange, some very brown and some as a slightly warm black & white.

I was wondering if there was a standard conversion. Also, is converting the image to black & white then using the sepia filter in Photoshop (Elements 5) a reasonable way of doing this or are there better ways.

Thanks for your help.

[Austin_HXC]

In Photoshop CS3, when you add a Black and White Adjustment Layer or Black and White Filter, in the dialog box, it gives you the conversion options about how a color is affected (if it turns black or white or gray) and at the bottom it gives you the option of adding an overall hue and one option is Sepia. So there's always that way.

PS: Sorry if that was long!

[Scatterbrain]

Thanks. I was wondering about the tone as much as how to do it. It seems that different people use different browns and call it sepia. Or maybe it's just different strengths. Do you just do it to taste or is there a standard tone that is an 'industry standard' so to speak.

I think I might have to visit the mum again and photograph one of her photographs to make sure these match her other prints. I'd hate for them to not be happy to hang them because they're different.

Thanks for your help

Scatterbrain

[Scatterbrain]

I guess that's a no then. I'll see if I can match her other prints.

[Nicole]

There was a great article on the blog at one point (and of course, as seems the usual lately I'm having a devil of a time finding it). So that's of pretty much no help, but the blog post was about creating better sepia toned images. If I recall correctly there was talk of changing to B&W then using a second layer for toning the image and then changing the opacity of it. That way you can get a lighter sepia tone. Not sure if that helps much, but it might help you once you have an idea of what kind of sepia tone your client's prints are.

[wulf]

I don't think there is a standard. Furthermore, sepia tone prints change with time. If you want to match the ones your client already has, use those as your reference for both colour AND contrast.

Wulf

[kencaleno]

The photoshop sepia is the standard-Sepia photos happened because in the days before
Enlargers came along, print exposures were made using sunlight,resulting in the sepia color.