Split Toning with Trena's Agave

[Gidders]

A couple of days ago Trena posted an mono abstract of an Agave (attached)At first I wasn't sure that B&W works for plant shot, but then I though it might be a good candidate for split toning. So with Trena's permission I've had a play.

So what is split toning? Split toning is an old film effect where the image comes out somewhere between black & white and colour. Often, when film photographers decided to use sepia toning, they found their image to have not completely bleached and this left a multi toned style image which was given the name split toning - typically with a cool/blue tone in the shadows & warm/sepia tone in the highlights (example attached) . With the digital darkroom you're not limited in the colours you choose

As in all things digital there are many ways of split toning & I've spent the morning having a play with some of the options which I'll write up in the following posts

[Gidders]

Probably the easiest way to split tone is using Lightrrom. First I added a levels layer bringing the end off the histogram in to 20 & 232 to add a bit more contrast before importing into Lightroom.

I decided that I was going to tone the shadows a greeny/grey and the highlights a sort of mauve colour. In Lightroom head to the develop module & if your image is still full colour, convert it to grey scale with one of the presets or a mix of your choice in the HSL/Color/B&W panel. The then scroll down to the split toning panel immediately below, & this is where the fun starts.

Initially everything is set to zero
splittone panel 1.jpg
The top two sliders affect the highlights, the bottom two the shadows, & the centre one the balance between the two. Its a question of playing with them until you achieve the look you like. NOTE when you start adjusting the hue, you'll not see anything until you add some saturation. I started with highlight hue 290 saturation 40, shadows hue 105 saturation 40 but found that was a bit strong in the highlights for my liking & finally settled on these settings
splittone panel 2.jpg

The final image is attached

[Gidders]

The second method is using two hue & saturation layers in Photoshop

Open your image & convert to grey scale by the method of your choice if you haven't already done so. Then add a H&S layer. Then go to > Image > Apply Image - this will create a grey scale mask of the image on the layer so that the H&S adjustment layer affects the highlights more than the shadows - rename this layer Highlights. Duplicate the layer & rename it Shadows. Click on the mask to select it & press CTRL + I to invert it so that this adjustment layer affect the shadows more. Ensure that your highlights layer is above your shadows layer. Your layers palette should look like this
layers plalete.jpg

Now click on the shadows H&S layer to open the adjustment dialogue box, check colorise & play with the sliders until you're happy with the colour - I used the same hue & saturation that I used in Lightroom
H&S.jpg

Turn off this layer & repeat with the highlights layer. Turn on the shadows layer. Reduce the opacity of the highlights layer as desired - I found 65% gave a balance I was happy with. Finally I added a curves layer to darken down the shadows a bit

[Gidders]

Again open in Photoshop & convert to B&W if you've not already done so.

While having the least number of steps & so therotically easier, I find this method less predictable/intuitive. Its more a question of moving the sliders around & seeing what happens

Add a color balance layer & in the dialog box select Shadows. Adjust the sliders until you're happy with the colours - this is where I dont find it particularly intuitive - it may be different for you.
CB 1.jpg

Now select Highlights & adjust
CB 2.jpg

And you're done

[Gidders]

This is the most complicated method but gives the most control.

Open your image & convert to B&W. If you've used adjustment layers to convert to B&W you need to flatten your image now to preserve your conversion.
Next go to > Image > Mode > Grayscale. Next go to >Image > Mode > Duotones and a dialogue box will open
Duo.jpg

A monotone is what is says a mono conversion but you can change if from Black & White to Red & White or Green & White or any other colour you fancy, & white.
What is more interesting are the Duotone, Tritone & even Quadtone options, or the selection of Presets
Duo 2.jpg

I selected Tritone & changed the second & third inks to a green & a mauve by clicking on the white patch & selecting a new colour.
To the left of each the ink colours is a box with a diagonal line through it - this is a curves box & by default each is a straight line at 45 deg which doesn't allow the different colours to tone different parts of the image
Duo 3.jpg

Continued in next post...

[Gidders]

... continued from previous post

So we want the black ink to affect the darkest parks of the image, the green, the shadows, & the mauve the highlights. So we need to adjust the three curves by clicking on the curves box. First the blacks so that they only impact the blacks - see how the greens are just starting to show.
Duo 4.jpg

Then adjust the greens to affect the mid tones
Duo 5.jpg

Then boost the mauves in the light tones
Duo 6.jpg

At this stage save your images as a psd file. You can come back and adjust the mix, the colours or the curves at any time by going to > Image > Mode > Duotones to reopen the dialogue box.

Finally to save as a jpg, you need to reconvert in to RGD by going > Image > Mode > RGB Color

Phew

[Tugboat]

nice effect Clive,I like it a lot....it all sounds too complicated for my poor brain though!!!!


when I have some time to play I will give it a go, thanks.

[graham harcombe]

Excellent masterclass Clive !

[andy153]

Thanks Clive - excellent run through of different techniques - thanks again.