Sepia Filter

Sepia is the warm brown tone of many early photographic prints. It is named after the brown ink of the cuttlefish (Sepia); the prints got their colour from toning baths that turned the silver image into more stable silver sulfide, which also helped them last. Today it is a quick way to give wedding photos, family scans or product shots a vintage feel. This filter applies the standard sepia colour matrix to every pixel, lets you blend it with the original, and adds optional fade, grain and vignette for an aged print look. Everything runs in your browser, so the photos stay on your device.

How to use this tool

1. Choose one or more images (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF or iPhone HEIC).
2. Set the sepia strength: 100% is the full classic tone, 40–60% keeps a hint of the original colours.
3. Optionally add fade, film grain and a vignette for an old-print look.
4. Pick the output format and download each image, or all of them as a ZIP.

Formula

R′ = 0.393R + 0.769G + 0.189B · G′ = 0.349R + 0.686G + 0.168B · B′ = 0.272R + 0.534G + 0.131B (each capped at 255)

The result is mixed with the original: out = in + strength × (sepia − in). Fade maps each value to value × (1 − 0.2f) + 40f, which lifts black to 40 at full fade. The vignette multiplies by 1 − v·t², where t rises from 0 at 45% of the way to the corner to 1 at the corner. Grain adds the same random amount (up to ±40 at 100%) to all three channels, from a fixed seed so results repeat.

Example

A blue pixel of RGB (37, 99, 235) becomes R′ = 0.393·37 + 0.769·99 + 0.189·235 = 135, G′ = 120, B′ = 94: a mid brown. At 50% strength it is (86, 110, 164), halfway between. A yellow (251, 191, 36) becomes a light cream (252, 225, 175).