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How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four

Thomas — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:24:18 +0000

This is the fourth and final post in a four-part series on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

In many cases you can add a touch of sophistication to your monochrome images by adding some subtle toning. Often toning your monochrome images can also help you emphasize a particular mood or feeling in your images. This four-part series on advanced toning will show you how.

Using the Duotone Presets

Start with a Grayscale image and then do Image Mode>Duotone (note that your image will need to be 8 bits/Channel for the Duotone menu to be available to select).

Photoshop comes with a set of ready-made duotone, tritone and quadtone recipe files. These can all be loaded for use on your grayscale images. To apply one of these recipes to your image, click on the Custom pop-up menu in the Duotones dialog box and select any of th pre-mixed colour recipes. There are some excellent examples that can be used to mimic warm, cold or vintage photographic papers.

The unusual curve shapes that you will see in many of the ready-made recipe files give you a very good idea of how to control the colour distribution. The heart example below was created using a vivid orange for the third colour, although you would not think so looking at the final result.

Using the Duotone Presets

Below you can see the before and after example as well as details of the ready-made recipe chosen for this example which includes the vivid orange colour as the third colour.

Click on the Custom pop-up menu to select your recipe

Fine Tuning a Preset Duotone Recipe

Most problems using the duotone method occur if you let all inks (colours) run into the shadow areas, giving heavy prints with encroaching blacks. The following tritone example was created using three ink colours: black, aqua and gold.

Tritone recipe with the ink colours black, aqua and gold

Here is the grayscale image after the above tritone recipe has been applied to it:

Image after tritone with black, aqua and gold (before curve adjustments)

Looking at this image it seems a little bit ‘heavy’ overall but with some small curve adjustments to each of the three ink colours we should be able to achieve a slightly ‘lighter’ print with better tone distribution. Here we go.

Step 1: Changing the Black Curve

To minimise the presence of black in the image, the black ink was pulled down in the darker midtones to lessen their overall effect.

The darker midtones of the black were lessened

Step 2: Changing the Aqua Curve

To continue on the path of making this print feel ‘lighter’ we took about 10% aqua ink out of the darkest tones.

Some of the aqua tone was taken out of the darkest tones

Step 3: Changing the Gold Curve

Finally the midtones in the golden ink were also pulled down to lessen the overall golden tone effect in the image.

The midtones of the gold colour were pulled back a little

Once each of the above three small curve adjustments have been applied you can now see the before and after results.

Tritone recipe before and after individual curve adjustments

Voila! The difference is quite subtle, but if you look carefully at the two versions above you should be able to notice that the ‘after’ version feels less ‘heavy’ and particularly when you look in the shadow areas.

More Resources

If you’re looking for a great resource on learning more about digital photography and Adobe Photoshop in general, then check out Vincent Bockaert’s The 123 of Digital Imaging which has impressed even Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost.

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

Finally I can also personally recommend many of the excellent courses at BetterPhoto.com. When I was starting out in photography I took 8 of the courses including a one with specialised training in Photoshop. Check them out.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Three

Thomas — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:05:48 +0000

This is the third post in a four-part series on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

One of the more sophisticated ways to tone an image digitally is to use the Duotone Image Mode option available in Photoshop. While it’s fairly sophisticated, it’s actually not very difficult to use, so stick with me through this tutorial. In fact I think this post looks a lot longer than it will actually take you to apply this technique.

Often duotones are used in the lithographic printing industry to reproduce high quality monochrome images. For example, to mimic the look of an original monochrome photographic print which might have been printed on warmtone paper or finished with chemical toners, book designers rely on special litho inks. This approach is often preferred over the traditional CMYK process when producing a coffee table quality monograph.

However, duotone mode digital images can also be printed out by most good desktop inkjet printers, so the process don’t have to be limited to litho output only. What makes toning in this way interesting is the ability to work with a personal swatch of colours, manipulating each in up to 10 different tonal sectors (see more about this at the bottom of this post).

Steel Study - Before and After

In this example we will apply a ‘steely blue’ tone using the duotone image mode in an effort to add some mood to the image.

Using the Duotone Image Mode

Start with a Grayscale image and then do Image Mode>Duotone (note that your image will need to be 8 bits/Channel for the Duotone menu to be available to select).

In the duotone dialog box black is set as the default first ink colour next to ‘Ink 1′ and there will be a blank box next to ‘Ink 2′ (or it might show the ink colour you used last time you did applied duotone).

Selecting Your Colour

Clicking in the blank box next to ‘Ink 2′ will reveal the Colour Picker where you can choose your second colour, or you can click on ‘Custom’ and select a Pantone Solid Coated colour such as the Pantone 279 C which I have chosen for this example where I’m aiming for a ‘steely blue’.

Loading the Colour

Once you have selected your second colour Photoshop immediately updates your image (behind the dialog box) showing the effect your colour choice creates and loads the colour into the dialog box.

Changing the Depth of Colour

Next you can choose to click on the small curve graph to the left of the ink colour square. Like the traditional ‘Curves’ controls, pulling or pushing the straight line will darken or lighten the second colour you have chosen (blue in this example).

In this example I have chosen to slightly lighten the darker blue tones by pulling the top part of the curve down a little bit, and I have also slightly darkened the lighter blue tones by pushing the lower part of the curve up a little bit.

Steel Study - Before toning

Steel Study - After toning

Know the Dutone Curves Dialog Box

Printing ink is expressed in percentage terms and in the ‘Duotone Curves’ dialog box, the normal grayscale range of 0-255 is converted to a 0-100% scale. The graph is divided into 10 sectors with each square represeting a 10% step in tone.

The line graph is straight by default with highlights bottom left and shadows top right. You can manipulate the colour by clicking anchor points on the curve and moving them as you would with the tradition ‘Curves’ dialog box.

By pushing the curve into the yellow zone, this will darken the colour and pulling it into the white zone will lighten it. If you want to remove an anchor point, just press the delete key.

You can also choose to leave curve as it is and simply type new values in the boxes next to each of the 10 percentage sectors and watch the curve change shape and your image changing in colour. If you think of these 0-100 percentage values representing 10 tonal zones from highlight to shadow, you can see the huge creative scope for tone manipulation.

More Resources

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Two

Thomas — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:08:25 +0000

This is the second post in a four-part series on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

Starting Point

If you are starting out with a full colour image and you want to apply a digital toning effect you should make sure to convert your source image to a black and white (or desaturated) image in the RGB colour mode before you start. There are several ways you can do this but the most straight forward way is to simply drain away all colour by going through the menus Image>Adjustments>Desaturate to ensure the result stays in the RGB colour mode.

Using the Colour Balance Controls

Compared to the toning we did in Part One of this series the results you can achieve by using Photoshop CS4′s Colour Balance controls are more sophisticated. In darkroom terms, this technique somewhat replicates printing a black and white negative onto colour paper using the enlarger’s colour filters.

Toning the Midtones

There are two ways you can get to the Colour Balance controls dialog window. You can go through the menu via Image>Adjustments>Colour Balance or you can select Colour Balance in the adjustments panel by clicking the icon that looks like two scales (as shown below).

The advantage by going through the adjustments panel is that the colour balance will be applied as an adjustment layer and therefore is non-destructive to your original image.

In the Colour Balance dialog window you’ll notice the familiar Cyan to Red, Magenta to Green and Yellow to Blue opposites.

To tone the midtones simply move the sliders around until you achieve the desired tone effect in your image, but be sure to keep the Midtones and Preserve Luminosity buttons checked for best result. In my example image further below I toned my Midtones with -20 Cyan and +10 Blue.

Toning the Highlights

You can apply a different colour to the highlight and shadow areas too by checking their respective buttons and then moving the sliders accordingly. To create a colour in the highlights I used +5 Red and -20 Yellow in my example below.

As with most post-processing work it’s a matter of ‘seasoning to taste’ and in the case of toning it’s a good idea to avoid saturated colours and be careful about not making the image too ‘heavy’, as shadows can clog up relatively easy during printing.

Here is an example of an original monochrome image and the split-toned result:

As you can see from the example above I have achieved a split-toned effect by adding Cyan and Blue to the Midtones and then adding a little bit of Red as well as Yellow to the Highlights.

I hope you enjoyed this second instalment on how to do advanced toning in Photoshop CS4.

More Resources

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part One

Thomas — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:18:49 +0000

This post is the first in a four-part series of posts on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

Starting Point

Using Photoshop CS4′s Variations Dialog Box

Found under Image>Adjustments>Variations (as shown below), the Variations preview window displays your image as a colour ring-around.

You’ll see your image in the centre box in its original state, surrounded by six colour variations, with a lighter and darker version on the right hand side (see the dialog box window below).

In the top right of the dialog box you’ll notice a slider for increasing or decreasing the ‘volume’ of your change. You can start out by pulling this slider all the way to the right (towards Coarse) to first get a good idea of the colours you’re working with. Then I would recommend that you pull the slider back all the way to the left (towards Fine) which is probably the best place to start in order not to over do the effect. You can always increase the ‘volume’ later if you think it’s needed.

Also notice in the top right of the dialog box how you can choose between toning the Shadows, Midtones, Highlights or Saturation of your image. The midtones are selected by default, but I suggest you experiment with what the other choices look like as well.

Click on any colour variation that looks good and watch it affect the centre image. For example if you click ‘More Cyan’ Photoshop will add the selected amount (Fine to Coarse) of cyan toning your image. If you click on ‘More Cyan’ again Photoshop will apply another increment of toning to your image.

You can apply as many adjustments as you like and if you go too far, just click on the ‘Original’ in the top left area of the dialog box to revert to your starting point.

This way of toning your images is probably one of the easiest and quickest way to achieve a nice over all toning of your images. The results you can achieve can look very nice though some people may argue the effect lacks the depth you can achieve by chemical toning in the darkroom.

Here is an example of an original monochrome image and three different toning results of the same image:

More Resources

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

Unique Digital Photography Tutorials

Thomas — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:34:50 +0000

Step behind the scenes with ProPhotoInsight’s unique digital photography tutorials.

Video tutorials are getting increasing popular across the internet within all sort of topics including of course photography. Simon Plant from ProPhotoInsight’s has acknowledged this increasing demand and has produced a series of photography video tutorials and Adobe Photoshop training videos.

Simon writes this about the idea behind the videos:

Our aim is to take you from start to finish of the image creation process (from behind the camera to behind the desk). Where possible we produce tutorials while on assignment for our clients or while we are traveling between commissions. So our aim is to show you everything it takes to produce professional images from capture to completion

Here is a little trailer to peak your interest:

For more details about these digital photography tutorials you can visit the ProPhotoInsights website.

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Split Toning a JPEG File in Photoshop CS4 in Three Easy Steps

Thomas — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:14:19 +0000

Digital toning has become increasingly popular in recent years, but the tecnique is of course more than 120 years old.

Some of the classic darkroom toning techniques include processes like sepia, selenium, gold, copper and iron-blue toning and are achieved with the use of chemicals.

There is no denying that digital toning has made the process of toning your images very easy.

Original black and white image

The concept of split toning involves tinting the highlights in a black and white image with one color and the shadows with another color. Some people might argue that the best results are achieved using opposite colours such as yellow and blue. In my view you can also achieve some really interesting results using two colours that are relatively close to each other such as red and yellow (see this variation at the bottom of this post).

Split toned image (blue and yellow)

If you are using Lightroom then chances are that you’ve experimented with the very cool Split Toning Panel found in the Develop module. Personally I use Adobe Lightroom quite a lot and find that it is probably the quickest and easiest way to apply split toning.

However, you can actually apply split toning to your images (including JPEG and TIFF files) just as easily using Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Here is how to do it in three simple steps.

1. Open Your File in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw)

To process JPEG or TIFF images in Camera Raw, select your JPEG or TIFF files in Adobe Bridge, and then choose File > Open In Camera Raw or press Ctrl+R (Windows) or Command+R (Mac OS).

2. Select the Split Toning Panel

Select the Split Toning Panel which is the little icon with two rectangular bars on top of each other (the 5th icon from the left underneath the Histogram and RGB values). Make your adjustments by experimenting with moving the Hue and Saturation sliders for the Highlights and the Shadows.

You can then use the Balance slider to fine tune your adjustment and skew it towards the Highlights or Shadows as desired.

3. Open Your Image in Photoshop

Now simply click the Open Image button and your image will open in Photoshop with the split toning effect applied. In Photoshop you can then make any further adjustments if required.

Split tone variation (red and yellow)

As you can see above the first split toned image uses opposite colours (blue and yellow) whereas the second image immediately above makes use of two colours relatively close to each other (red and yellow).

It’s only your imagination and personal aesthetics that sets the limits here. While toning of images is steeped in tradition, there really is no right or wrong answers.

If you’re looking for a great ressource on learning more about digital photography and Adobe Photoshop in general, then check out Vincent Bockaert’s The 123 of Digital Imaging which has impressed even Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost.

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more ressources.

I hope you enjoyed this quick little tutorial on how to split tone your images – including JPEG and TIFF files – in Photoshop CS4 in three easy steps.

Don’t forget to Live, Learn and Enjoy Photography.

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How To Photograph Silhouettes

Thomas — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:37:18 +0000

As photographers we want to create images with impact and drama. Silhouettes are a great way to capture your viewer’s attention and convey mood, mystery and drama in your images.

A silhouette is a view of an object consisting of an outline and a featureless black interior. In photography the term is used to describe an image of a person, object or a scene that is backlit and appears dark against a lighter background. Partial or near-silhouettes can also be very powerful ways of conveying mood in your photographs.

The term silhouette dates back to the 18th century where portraits and other pictorial representations were cut from thin black card. The silhouette was named after the French finance minister Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767) who was known for his severe economic demands on the French people and as it happen de Silhouette also practised this relatively cheap art form himself.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

To create a good, strong silhouette photo look for interesting shapes with a clear and distinctive outline that is simple and uncluttered. However more intricate subjects like trees can also look stunning as silhouettes.

Pay attention that your silhouette is not merging with other subjects. For example, while a group of people might look good huddled together in a ‘normal’ photo, it will rarely work very well as a silhouette. Instead of an unrecognisable black blob of people you’ll typically want to have some separation between each person for the image to work as a silhouette.

Clearly defined outlines and graphic shapes are the key to successful silhouettes.

Silhouettes make use of backlighting and you’ll want to look for a situation where there is significantly more light falling on the background than there is falling on the front of the subject you want to photograph as a silhouette.

Perhaps the easiest way to produce silhouettes is by photographing your subject against the colour in the sky as it occurs just before sunrise or just after sunset.

To set your exposure for this situation simply set your metering mode to multi-zone metering (also known as matrix, evaluative or honeycomb metering) and fill your frame with the sky (i.e. avoid including any foreground) and your camera will then expose for the sky and record any subjects in the foreground as silhouettes.

Good ideas for subjects can be – but are certainly not limited to – animals, birds, fences, windmills, flowers, lighthouses, trees and people.

SUNNY BACKGROUND

Another way to create strong silhouettes is by shooting into the sun and placing the sun behind the subject you wish to silhouette. This is also known as contre-jour which is French for ‘against daylight’.

The added benefit of the contre-jour technique is that it often creates beautiful rim lighting around your subject which enhances the aesthetic of the image.

To set your exposure ‘correctly’ when shooting into the sun you should take your meter reading from just above or underneath, or just to the left or the right of the sun, but don’t include the sun itself in your reading as otherwise you’ll end up with significantly underexposed images.

As a result of the high contrast situation when putting a subject right in front of the sun your subject will automatically record as a silhouette if you meter as per above.

SUN-STAR EFFECT

If you want to create a sun-star effect in your silhouette image, all or at least part of the sun must be within your frame. It’s easier (and safer for your eyes) if the sun is partially obscured by an object.

Once you have your sun in the right place stop down your lens to f/16 or f/22 or smaller and you’ll end up with a nice sun-star effect.

Exposure settings for the sun-star effect can be a little tricky as it depends on how much (if not all) of the sun you include in your image. However I would suggest using the exposure reading technique described above as your starting point and then evaluate your histogram from there (assuming you’re shooting digital) and adjust if needed.

You may get some lens flare in your image but this can be hard to avoid completely when shooting into the sun. Sometimes you can even use lens flare creatively to enhance the overall mood of your image. Using a good lens hood (or even your hand, hat or a piece of cardboard) can help eliminate or reduce lens flare.

Warning: It is important to be very careful when shooting into the sun. Do not stare at the sun for too long and avoid pointing your lens directly at the sun while looking through your viewfinder as this can potentially cause damage to your eyes.

PARTIAL OR NEAR-SILHOUETTES

True silhouettes are simple, graphic, black featureless outlines and by nature this also gives these images a more two-dimensional appearance.

Images that contain a little bit of detail in the silhouetted subject can be just as striking as true silhouettes if not even more striking.

Details in the silhouette like colour or texture can give the image a more three-dimensional appearance and in my personal opinion this often adds to the overall mood and aesthetic of the image.

In order to get a little bit of detail in your silhouette you can try opening up your exposure a little bit by using a larger aperture or a slower shutter speed to the extent where parts of your silhouetted foreground start recording detail in the least dark areas.

Alternatively you could try adding a touch of fill-flash to your exposure. If you can take your flash off-camera then try that and have your fill-flash coming in at an angle in an effort to create a hint of texture across your silhouetted subject.

SUMMARY: 5 QUICK STEPS TO CREATING SILHOUETTTES

Keep in mind that shape and form is all important when creating a strong silhouette. Use subjects which have a clear outline.
The background needs to be brighter than the subject itself. Ideally little or no light should be falling on the silhouetted subject and the main light source (e.g. the sun) should be behind the subject. The bigger the difference between the light in the background and that (if any) falling on your subject, the better the outline will be.
For best results keep your compositions simple and push the horizon line low in the image.
Correct exposure is the key to a successful silhouette. Check the LCD on your digital camera if you’re in doubt about your exposure and adjust the exposure if needed.
Keep your silhouette simple and graphic and be careful that it doesn’t merge with other unwanted objects or shapes. Separate people if you’re shooting a group of people and possibly even pose them by asking them to keep their limbs from merging with their body to have a more clear outline of their body shape.

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The RAW Power of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

Thomas — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:45:45 +0000

If you’re shooting RAW you will already know that RAW images need some post-processing to come to life and not look like flat, lifeless pictures. If you’re new to shooting RAW please understand that it is not a sin – more like a ‘must’ – to do some post-processing work to make your images look more like the colourful JPG files that your camera will typically produce when you’re shooting JPGs.

I usually use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 to develop my RAW files but the same work can be done in the latest version of Camera Raw right inside Adobe Photoshop CS4.

The processing of this image is an example of the RAW power of Lightroom 2. All processing has been done right inside Lightroom 2 (but as mentioned these steps can also be made in Camera Raw). In fact as you will see I have only used the Basic Panel and the tools just above the Basic Panel (Spot Removal, Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush). As you can see these simple changes make quite a difference to the image and the good news about processing RAW files is that YOU are completely in control of the changes and how far (or not so far) you want to take them.

The only changes made in the Basic Panel are minor changes to Exposure, Blacks, Clarity and Vibrance.

I used the Graduated Filter to saturate and darken down the water a bit. Notice I have also made a yellowish colour change by using the Color setting within the Graduated Filter.

This shows the changes applied in a second Graduated Filter I used to darken the sky and again I used the Colour setting to put a little bit of blue into the sky. Notice how much I have been able to crank up the Saturation without the sky looking ridiculously blue.

The Adjustment Brush is a new powerful – and memory hungry – tool in Lightroom 2 which allows the user to make local non-destructive adjustments to their image which is very cool functionality. In this example I simply used the Adjustment Brush to make a local contrast increase to the sky.

You can click on the little square thumbnail at the top of the post to view the finish image in large view. By the way the image above is from the grand basin at Castelnaudery on Canal du Midi in France from where you can go on the most beautiful river cruise you can ever imagine.

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