Using Curves to Emulate the Print Tone Process

Using Curves to Emulate the Print Tone Process

When you look at OLD film processing, you will find may different processes were used in the late 19th and early 20th century to make prints. Today most people look at a brown print and say “Humph… Sepia”… But is it really Sepia? Maybe it’s Kallitype… or Silver Gelatin… or maybe Van Dyke… To the untrained eye these all just look “Brown”… But look at them side to side…



As you can see… although a horse is a horse (of course, of course), brown is not always sepia…

The following technique will work to copy the tone of ANY toned photograph and allow you to save it as a curve so you can apply it to any image any time you choose.

This process is easy, but it’s a bit tedious and you’ll need a pen and paper to keep track of things.

Today we are going to make a copy of a Van Dyke print.

Here is the image tone we are going to try to copy:



When YOU pick an image tone to copy, but SURE to choose an image that has a full range of tone from white to black.

Load this image into Photoshop

1) Duplicate the Background to a new layer - <ctrl><J>

2) Desaturate the new layer – Image>Adjustments>Desaturate or <ctrl><shift><U>

Leave this new desaturated layer as your active layer.

Your pallet should look like this:



3) Select the Color Sample Tool from the Pallet (It’s under the eye dropper)… be sure you are set to “Point Sample” not 3x3 or 5x5

4) Switch over to the Info Pallet – It’s usually in the same box as your Navigator and Histogram up at the top Right…

Move the pointer over the image and watch how the values change as you move over the desaturated layer…

We want to find 3 samples on the black and white layer… one at 64, one at 128 and one at 191

Why these three numbers? Because those are the 3 intersection points of the dotted lines on a curves adjustment layer. In this write up we are only going to use these three points. When I do a tone… I take 10 samples… The more samples you take… the better and more accurate your tone curve will be to the original print.

Take your time in finding these points… blow the image up to 400% and find your numbers. They are always there somewhere.

When you’re done… your info pallet will look like this…

Now… go down to your Layers pallet and click the little eyeball next to your black and white layer to hide it… and all the numbers in your info pallet will change and look like this…



WRITE THESE NUMBERS DOWN ON PAPER FOR THE NEXT STEP

Now we have to values to plug into our curves to copy this tone.

5) Open a new image of your choice and desaturate it.

6) Add a curves adjustment layer to the image Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves

7) Click the drop down box and choose the RED channel

8) Click on the intersection of the dotted lines in the lower left corner… for the input value – enter 64 – for the output… look at our paper – Enter 80. Now click on the next intersection… Input value 128 – Output 158 Now on the last intersection – Input 191 – output 226

9) Repeat this above process on the Green Layer using the green values and the Blue layer using the Blue values

Here how my three channels looked after I was done:







Now… Still in the Curves Dialog… Click on the SAVE button… Save this curve setting on your computer and name it “Van Dyke Curve”

Now anytime you want to emulate a Van Dyke toned image… Put a Curves Adjustment Layer on your image, Click LOAD in the Curves Dialog and LOAD this curve.

Using this technique you can copy the tone of any old image you find anywhere on the internet. Look through old images anywhere you can find them. Build yourself a library of tones to use.

I hope you find this useful. I know I have.