Photoshop CS 3 Tutorial: How to Split Tone a Photo in 30 Seconds or Less

What is Split Toning?

Split toning is a technique that originated in the black and white darkroom. A traditional printer split tones by using two toners one after the other, one to tone the print’s shadows and the other to tone the highlights.

Photoshop CS does away with the messy chemicals and lets you tone prints with just a few clicks of the mouse. In this tutorial I’m going to show you an easy way to split tone using Gradient Map.

First, you need to start with a black &white photo. I’m not going to discuss colour to black & white conversion in this tutorial simply because there are several ways to do it, each with its own advantages, and I’m sure that many of you already have your favourite technique.

(The quick way, for beginners, is Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation and then move the Saturation slider all the way to left and click OK).

Silk Purses & Pigs’ Ears

I’d like to encourage you to try this technique with your best black & white photos. Split toning is a great technique for bringing the best out of your most amazing work. It’s not a good technique for improving bad photos.

The Split Toning Technique

For this tutorial I’m going to assume that you’re already familiar with basic Photoshop techniques of changing the foreground and background colours, creating new adjustment layers and changing layer blending modes. If these are new to you, scroll down to the bottom of the tutorial where I’ll describe how to do these things.

Choose Your Colours

The first step is to choose your two toning colours. You do this by setting the foreground and background colour swatches at the bottom of the toolbox. The foreground colour becomes the shadows in the photo, and the background colour becomes the highlights. For my first example I chose a chocolate brown for the foreground/shadows (63441C) and cream for the background/highlights (FFF5D8). I recommend you start with these and experiment with your own colours once you’ve got the hang of it.

Create a Gradient Map Layer

Now we’re going to create a Gradient Map layer using the two colours you’ve just selected. Bring up the Layers Palette and create a new adjustment layer, choosing Gradient Map from the list of options. A new window appears showing a graduated bar with the foreground and background colours you chose.

Click ‘OK’ and, if you used the two colours I listed above, the photo will look something like this:

Change the Blending Mode

Now change the layer blending mode from ‘Normal’ to ‘Color’:

Adjust Opacity

The strength of the effect can be adjusted to taste by using the Opacity or Fill sliders (it doesn’t matter which):

More Colour Combinations

Try these colour combinations or experiment with your own:

Foreground:       Muted Brown (45392B)

Background:       White (FFFFFF)

Foreground:       Midnight Blue (2A4469)

Background:       White (A9C6C6)

Foreground:       Dusky Blue (4A616F)

Background:       Muted Orange (E6CFAA)

What’s a Gradient Map?

The Gradient Map command creates a greyscale image that uses the foreground colour for the shadows and the background colour for the highlights. When you create a Gradient Map adjustment layer, click the small black arrow to the immediate right of the graduated bar for more colour options. You can play around with the different colour combinations to see the effect.

Change Foreground and Background Colours in Photoshop CS

Left-click on either the foreground or background colour swatch at the bottom of the toolbox. The Color Picker window will appear and you can choose a new colour from the colour square or type the hexadecimal value of the colour in the highlighted box at the bottom.

Create a New Adjustment Layer in Photoshop CS

Use ‘F7′ or Window -> Layers to bring up the Layer Palette. Create a new adjustment layer by clicking on the half black half white circle at the bottom of the palette or by Layer -> New Adjustment Layer then choose the type of the layer you want to create.

Change the Layer Blending Mode & Adjust Layer Opacity in Photoshop CS

The highlighted areas on the picture show you where to change the layer blending mode and layer fill and the locations of the ‘Create new fill or adjustment layer’ button and the foreground & background colour swatches.

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JPG Magazine

Did you know that there is an online photography magazine where anyone can upload their photos and photo essays and post their profiles?

JPGmag.com is a photo sharing site for photographers with a difference. Members upload photos and articles which are voted on by other members. The best of the best are published in a (real) magazine and the authors paid $US100 and given a free subscription. The magazine is available for download in PDF format and can also be purchased in print form.

The standard of the photography in the published magazine is inspirationally high. That’s not surprising, consider the following statistics for JPG Magazine Issue 10: 10,743 photos submitted by 6,771 people, 1,057,974 votes cast by 21,024 people in 147 countries.

Membership is free, and members can submit articles, photos and photo essays. Single photos can be submitted to themes; recent themes include ‘America’, ‘Dreamscapes’, ‘Are You Ready to Rock’ and ‘Fashion’.

The site is easy to use and navigate with a modern design fitting a cutting edge photography magazine. Visitors can view photos, photo essays, articles, stories and contributor profiles. Photos can be voted in or out of the next edition of the magazine.

I’ve just posted my first photo essay to the JPG Magazine website:

Angels, Tombs & Virgins in Recoleta

Every time that I travel to Argentina I like to visit the magnificent, flamboyant and elitist Cementerio de Recoleta (Recoleta Cemetery) in Buenos Aires.

Why is Recoleta so special? It’s a burial ground for the most influential and powerful politicians, artists, scientists, sportsmen and financiers of Buenos Aires, and military heroes who helped in the struggle for Argentina’s independence. It’s expensive. They say it’s cheaper to live the good life in Buenos Aires than to be buried in Recoleta. It’s also exclusive. So exclusive that Evita Peron is buried there and her husband General Juan Peron, one of Argentina’s most famous presidents, isn’t. Carlos Gardel, Argentina’s most famous tango singer, didn’t make it to Recoleta either (both are buried in the cemetery of Chacarita).

The necropolis is a mini city within a city, with giant mausoleums built along avenues like houses in a street. The mausoleums are amazing creations built from granite and marble. Each one is different, some fairly simple and others lavish and ornate and built in a wide variety of styles including Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Neoclassical, Secessionist, Neo-Byzantine and Neo-Babylonian.

Many of the mausoleums are decorated with statues and crosses, and there are countless statues of angels and the Virgin Mary. Some of the statues are bigger than a person. Others are mounted on top of the mausoleums, pointing at or staring towards the sky.

There’s also something special about the location of Recoleta Cemetery. It’s built in the heart of Recoleta, one the more expensive and exclusive neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires. It’s enclosed by high brick walls, above which from outside it’s possible to see the tops of the mausoleums and statues. There’s a large and busy handicrafts market on the green lawns outside the cemetery at weekends, sometimes with live music. There are restaurants and bars and shops full of designer clothes and furniture nearby. The Basi­lica Nuestra Senora del Pilar, a large and beautiful gleaming white church (one of the few remaining colonial buildings in the capital) is right next door to the cemetery’s gates.

Of course, the real reason that I love the cemetery is for photography. Coincidentally, every time that I’ve been has been in winter, and the low light and cold air just adds to the slightly surreal atmosphere. Every time that I go I see something new to photograph and new ways of taking photos. The statues, mausoleums and crosses are great for black and white photography. I like to look for tonal contrasts and textures on the surfaces of the mausoleums and statues. I also like to photograph the statues and crosses semi-silhouetted against the bright sky. If I still used a darkroom (rather than Photoshop and a computer) I would print the photos using the lith process. I try to emulate the look by boosting the contrast and giving the photos a sepia tone.

You can also read it (and see more photos) here:

Angels, Tombs & Virgins in Recoleta