Selenium

Selenium is a preset with memory. Not the kind of warmth you pour over a photograph, but the warmth that appears when light retreats into the shadows. Darkroom printers used selenium toner to protect prints from decay. The side effect was a colour shift that only touched the dark areas. That distinction is built into this preset. The highlights stay where they are. The midtones too. Only the blacks carry a trace of warmth.

Technically, Selenium shifts the shadow tones toward reddish-brown while the rest of the tonal range stays neutral. The contrast is tightened, but not harsh. The black point sits low enough for depth without swallowing detail. The lighter areas receive no yellow or brown cast. That is exactly what separates this preset from a simple tone curve or a sepia slider: the division between warm and neutral is selective, not global.

The preset works best on photographs with clear shadow areas. Street photography shot in side light or backlight. Portraits in dark rooms or by window light that only illuminates one side of a face. Architecture where stone and concrete recede into darkness. Documentary and editorial photographs also benefit from this approach, because the preset feels more considered than a filter and less constructed than a classic black-and-white edit.

You reach for Selenium when you want a photograph to carry some historical weight without romanticising it. When you want an image to look like it has existed for a while, not like something processed in an app yesterday. The preset also suits photographs you might otherwise have converted to black and white, but where you want to keep that last layer of warmth.

A practical note: apply the preset and then pull the Tint slider a few points toward green if the shadows feel too red. That small adjustment keeps the warmth intact but makes it less obvious. Selenium works best when you cannot quite name what it is doing.