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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18. November 2009 at 9:24 am
Thanks for that tip Thomas. Split-toning is something I’d like to experiment with, if only I could find the time!
Back in the “old” days when I used to share a dark room at the local Arts Centre, there was a guy who used to split-tone his prints with Selenium. His results were fantastic, but he’d been practising for 20 years. We have it easy with Photoshop!
18. November 2009 at 8:38 pm
Hi Mike, my passion for photography happened just as digital was getting popular and more affordable, so unfortunately I never really got to experiment in the darkroom, although if I had the space and time available today I would love to pursue it. Maybe one day.
However for now digital will have to make do.
I bought the book Photo Art not so long ago which has some amazing examples of different toning tehcniques from both the darkroom and the lightroom (so to speak). It also deals with montages and all sorts of creative photography techniques. You might be able to find it on the shelves in a larger well stocked bookstores in the UK.
I absolutely agree that there is something very attractive about a hand toned print rather than a digitally toned print. It’s the craft and individual technique (and somewhat unpredictable results) that makes it attractive I think. I’d love to try it one day.
However, I do also think that good – and well crafted – results can be achieved with Photoshop and there are obviously many other ways to tone an image than the very basic example show in this post.
19. November 2009 at 7:54 pm
Don’t get me wrong – while I can see the place for working in the darkroom for fine art/high value prints, I could never go back to that for my “regular” photography. I would never get anything done in the time I have.
Plus I read an article recently on digital photography as a more environmentally responsible medium. I hadn’t thought about it from that point of view. Those chemical fumes could make me choke at times.
19. November 2009 at 9:15 pm
Yes, it’s true about the environmentally friendly aspect of digital photography. Just think about the thousands and thousands of litres of chemicals that are no longer being used – and disposed of – to develop traditional rolls of film.
However, of course we also use electricity to charge our digital batteries, our back-up drives, laptops, and not to mention the time spent developing images on the computer/monitor.
It would be an interesting comparison if someone had some more scientific data on the subject. I do think digital would still come out ahead though.
22. November 2009 at 9:16 pm
I’ve only just spotted this little tutorial of yours, Thomas! I never knew you could even open .jpgs in ACR – I thought it only worked on RAW images. So thank you for teaching me something very new and I will have a play with split toning some old b +w images when I have the time.
23. November 2009 at 9:36 pm
Ingrid, ACR used to only work with RAW images, but I think since Photoshop CS3 you can now also opend JPEGs and TIFFs.
I’m pleased if you took a little tip away from this little tutorial
5. November 2010 at 12:33 am
Great article, useful tips!
Don’t forget that split toning can be very powerful when used on color images too! It can induce various moods just by discretely adding color casts. Or to take it even further, it can become strong cross-processing (also works well with strong vignettes!).
Here are some of my own tips, examples and resources on the matter: http://www.alexandruvita.com/blog/2010/11/04/the-power-of-split-toning-for-color-images/
14. January 2011 at 10:04 pm
good article…