Why is that photo brown?

Moon-Randolph Homestead
Missoula, Montana

Old pictures that have a yellow or brown color cast to them are very common. The color can result from fading, from the paper the picture was printed on turning yellow, or because it was originally printed in that color. A common wet-darkroom technique was to tone or tint a black & white print in a different chemistry called sepia, which gave the photo a brown, yellow or orange hue.

Ghost towns are good places to shoot images that you can apply a simulated sepia, or brown, tone to using photo editing software. Join me for Photograph Historic Montana to learn how to achieve this effect using Lightroom Classic. Class begins September 12, 2019 at the Lifelong Learning Center in Missoula, Montana. Click here to register.