Photo: How to color overlay 2 colors (light & dark) for sepia effect?

[Andi Saitenhieb]

Hi there,

I have 3 branding colors (1 main accent, one near white and one near black).
In my video editor I found an option to set a different color for the light and the dark tone independently.
So I set 2 of my colors, set the saturation and the intensity each to 50% - voila, loved the result.

Now I want to do the same to my photos for branding reasons.
So I tried all the options I could find (including the colorize function with the 2 sepia presets) but didn't get really close.
How can I do this in Affinity Photo?

Thanky ou for your help,
Andi

PS: My exact colors are

• vintage white: #FCF9F2 / 252 249 242 (instead of plain white)
• beige: #DEB887  /  222 184 135
• dark brown (instead of plain black): #35211D / 53 33 29.

[David in Яuislip]

Anything like this? The gradient map is in the .afphoto file attached

SacreCoeurGradMap.afphoto

[Andi Saitenhieb]

Deleted

[Dan C]

@Andi Saitenhieb You may want to try using only one Gradient Map layer, as shown below - 

 

[h_d]

A further suggestion - convert the image to greyscale, adjust brightness and contrast to give a 'punchy' black and white image, convert back to RGB, then apply a Gradient Map.

Don't use the "Lighter Colour" and "Darker Colour" blend modes. Use a single Gradient Map, with the blend mode set to Normal, with your darker colour set to the left-hand end and your lighter colour set to the right-hand end.

I've attached an .afphoto file with the history saved and using your two colours - hope it's close to what you want.

 

ADD: To explain a little further - the Gradient Map adjustment maps the left-hand blob (your brown) to the darkest (black) pixels in the original, and the right-hand blob (your beige) maps to the lightest (white) pixels. Pixels with intermediate tones (greys) map to the intermediate tones in the gradient map. That's why I would suggest converting to greyscale and adjusting brightness and contrast - the more contrast in the original, the better the sepia-toned image will appear. If there are no blacks in your original, there will be no dark browns in the sepia-toned version. Likewise with whites.

 

brugge_sepia.afphoto

Edited September 13, 2020 by h_d
Added a bit of explanation.

[Andi Saitenhieb]

@David in Яuislip @Dan C @h_d  Thanks again to everybody! I had to fiddle with the opacity in the Gradient Map, now I am really satisfied with the result! 🙂

Final question: Where can I fine tune the saturation? I didn't find that knob / option.

Camtasia:

Affinity Gradient Map with 3 points, 50% Opacity

Original photo: