Tutorial on toning B&W images?

[pingssgp]

Hi all,

Is there a tutorial on toning B&W images in photoline? Searching for the keyword "toning" in these forums gives me a few hits with experiments from different people, but there doesn't appear to be a consolidation in one place.

Thanks.

[iosoio]

There's no need for any tutorial: It's a two steps straightforward process.
Open the False Color panel…



and double click on an anchor point (eventually clicking the empty space between two of them to set a new one) or choose a preset from the bar below.

[Alan9940]

Using False Color as suggested above is a powerful way to tone B&W images because it allows you to modify a gradient. If you want/need something simple, add a new layer setting it to RGB mode and picking your toning color of choice (I like hex 928d88 because it's very similar to Kodak Portiga paper I printed on in the darkroom years ago), and then set that layer to "Color" blending mode. Adjust opacity to taste.

Have fun!!

Kind regards,
Alan

[photoken]

Another method, which gives very precise control, is to use three layers:

toning layers 02.png

Use the Gray Mixer (or Hue Editor, or Hue/Saturation) to convert the image to B&W.

The Curves layer, working in "Lab" mode, sets the tone colour by adjusting the blue/yellow and red/green curves.

The False Color layer uses a black-to-white gradient (or black-to-transparent gradient) to adjust the "depth" of the blacks. Often, toning leaves the dark areas of the image too weak-looking for my taste.

[iosoio]

The False Color layer uses a black-to-white gradient (or black-to-transparent gradient) to adjust the "depth" of the blacks. Often, toning leaves the dark areas of the image too weak-looking for my taste.

I agree, you're right. This test toning was done with Curves Adj Layers in *Lab.



By the point, Is there a way to set a Duotones a là Photoshop: by customizing one of the two inks with a spot color? Or maybe an image with three, four inks?

Many thanks

[Alan9940]

The Curves layer, working in "Lab" mode, sets the tone colour by adjusting the blue/yellow and red/green curves.

Hi Ken,

I'm a little confused by this statement... Lab mode doesn't have a red/green curve; rather it's green/magenta. Is this what you meant? I've used the RGB red & blue channel curves many times to affect a sepia-style toning. Just seeking a little clarification because I'm very interested in the 3-layer setup you posted above.

Kind regards,
Alan

[photoken]

Lab mode doesn't have a red/green curve; rather it's green/magenta. Is this what you meant?

My bad....

Yes, that's what I meant.

The reason I use the Curves layer for this is that it's easier to get only a very subtle toning -- I prefer a very faint bluish-purple tone, a variation of selenium toning, if you will. So I click on the left curve point of each of the colour curves and use the arrow keys on my keyboard to move the point. Two or three clicks up to give a slight magenta cast, and four or five clicks to the right to add some blue is just about right.

[photoken]

This test toning was done with Curves Adj Layers in *Lab.

That is a very good-looking result!

By the point, Is there a way to set a Duotones a là Photoshop: by customizing one of the two inks with a spot color? Or maybe an image with three, four inks?

I think you can get a result that is very similar, but maybe not exactly the same. I don't know how to do it, but I do know that if you use View...Panels...Document Information you can change the Mode to "Document Mode", and then you can define spot colours.

[Alan9940]

Two or three clicks up to give a slight magenta cast, and four or five clicks to the right to add some blue is just about right.

Always like a nice selenium tone, too. I will definitely give this a try! Thanks, Ken.

Kind regards,
Alan

[photoken]

Hey, Alan,
I've done some experimenting with the 3-layer method, and finally figured out a solution to something that's always bothered me:

Although I could get good, deep, rich blacks, I could never avoid having the colour cast diminish the highlights. IOW, what should have been bright white was always somewhat less than that due to the colour toning. (This was the motivation for exploring the use of a Curves adjustment to do the toning, by the way.)

After beating my head against that wall for a long time, I got smart and realized that one of my Favorite Things, a Luminosity Mask, would be the perfect solution.

Here's the example:
The image is in the public domain under the "CC0" license and available here:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/landscape- ... ocks-4019/

nature 03 original.jpg

I added a mask to the Curves and the False Color adjustment layers, copied the original image to the Clipboard, and used the Tool...Change Channels function to put the Clipboard contents into the Black channel, giving me my Luminosity mask. After inverting the colours of the masks, I applied a Curves adjustment to the Luminosity masks to darken the (original) highlight areas so they will be much less affected by the toning. The layers look like this:

nature 03 layers.jpg

And the result:

nature 03 toning.jpg

(You can download the full size image, which is 7.4Mb from dropbox. I "gilded the lily" for the dropbox image by adding a HighPass adjustment layer in "Overlay" mode to add a slight amount of "Clarity". )
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aqgxirjhvoe9s ... d.jpg?dl=0

I've got the best of all three worlds: deep rich blacks, a slight selenium toning, and clear brilliant highlights. Changing the settings and/or opacity of the Curves and False Color adjustment layers gives me beaucoup control over the final result.

Damn, I'm happy!

[pingssgp]

I'm trying my hand at a couple of options, photoline only versus photoline with a B&W plugin followed by adjustments in PL via light+shadow and curves adjustment layers.

landscape-mountains-nature-rocks bw sml.jpg

I threw a bit of light into the dark areas to avoid blocked shadows, and tried to keep the highlights from blowing out through a mild light + shadow adjustment.
I'll try my hand at a pure-photoline B&W conversion and post the results later.

[photoken]

I'll try my hand at a pure-photoline B&W conversion and post the results later.

Take a look at these two Experiments dealing with B&W conversions:
http://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5032
http://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5043

Your results would be very welcome additions to those discussions, too.

[Alan9940]

Hi Ken,

Wow...great minds must think a like! I only got about 1/2 through your "landscape post" above when I had the thought: A luminosity mask would be just the ticket here. And, dang, that's where you went with it! I'll go back and re-read it and try this new technique later, but I wanted to mention that I have an action that creates a very nice series of luminosity masks from bright-brights to dark-darks; pretty sure I got it off these boards at some point. Do you have this? I've used it many times and find them extremely useful.

Kind regards,
Alan

[Alan9940]

@pingssgp - Hope you don't mind a bit of constructive criticism here... We're all here to learn...

Though your B&W interpretation is admirable IMO you've opened up the deeper shadows areas a bit too much and have lost that "edge of day/light" feeling that one gets from Ken's interpretation. No clue whether the original image is early morning sunrise or late day sunset, but IMO any B&W conversion demands those deeper (maybe slightly blocked) shadows to maintain the feel of the scene. In Ken's version, I can almost feel the crispness in the air! Could have been hot as hell, but that's not the way my eyes read it.

Again, who am I to question your interpretation? I only offer my thoughts as opinions of another photographer.

Kind regards,
Alan

[photoken]

I have an action that creates a very nice series of luminosity masks from bright-brights to dark-darks; pretty sure I got it off these boards at some point. Do you have this? I've used it many times and find them extremely useful.

Hi Alan,
No, I don't have that action. I've seen a lot about such actions and luminosity masks series, but I've avoided them. My thinking is this: When I need a luminosity mask, it's gonna need to be unique to the image so I'll have to modify one of the presets anyway. Might as well just start with the image itself as a LM and modify that.

Also, we've been working exclusively with nature scenes where such a generalized LM series can work well. It's a different matter if the image is a portrait, or a street scene or cityscape where a general brigh-bright or dark-medium LM would noiticeably affect more areas than is wanted.

At any rate, it's great that PL lets us easily create an adjustment layer for the LM and see the results in real time when modifying that adjustment.