Toning and Tinting

Black and white is black and white, right? Not so fast, pardner. From the very beginnings of photography, black and white has actually meant the light brown of sepia toning, the gray caused by the chemical selenium, the blue of the cyanotype process, and so on—a single, monochrome color on a scale with white. In other words, black and white means monochrome, but it doesn’t literally imply that the image is in the key of black. Monochrome means a single color—but that color is not necessarily completely black.

Historically, toning was the result—or by-product—of the chemical process used to make a print, although aesthetic choice was often involved when a toned effect was actively sought after. Toning sometimes added archival qualities and extended the tonal range of a print; whereas, tinting simply added color. With digital photography, all “toning” and “tinting” choices are virtual—meaning they are a digitally applied simulation—intended to add to the visual appeal of a black and white photo.

The decision to tone a digital photo means to add a color tint resembling an old-fashioned tone to some or all of a photo for aesthetic reasons. Thus, in the digital world, there is no real difference between toning and tinting (in the chemical darkroom the two were achieved differently). However, if you want those who look at your monochromatic photos to associate the added color with the kind of tones they’ve seen in vintage photos, you should keep your color choices to those that might plausibly have been seen in toned, old prints.

Obviously, there are many ways to add a color overlay to a monochromatic image. These methods work with images that are in RGB or CMYK (if you’ve converted your images to Grayscale, you should convert it back to a color mode unless you are applying a duotone-style effect as on pages 262–267).

It’s worth noting that most monochromatic digital images are archived as RGB color files, and only converted to grayscale if there is a specific reason for doing so.

Here are some of the simpler ways to add a tone or tint to your image:

• In Adobe Camera RAW (pages 96–101) choose the Split Toning tab. You can enter the same or different color values for highlights and shadows.
• In Adobe Lightroom Classic (pages 102–119) use the Split Toning tab with the same or different color values for highlights and shadows.
• In Photoshop, place a layer filled with your color above a photo on the background layer, and then adjust opacity and blending mode until you achieve the desired effect.
• In Photoshop, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to your photo, with the Colorize box checked.
• In Photoshop, add a tint to a Black & White adjustment layer as shown here on this page.
• Lightroom and Photoshop plug-ins such as On1 Perfect B&W, Topaz B&W Effects, and Silver Efex Pro all provide intuitive ways to add tones and tints.

Tinting with a Black & White Adjustment Layer

It’s easy to add a tint to an image using a Black & White adjustment layer. After adding the adjustment layer and selecting a Preset (see pages 144–149), select the Tint check box, and use the Color Picker to choose a tint color.

Step 1: Add a Black & White adjustment layer as shown in Steps 1 and 2 on page 145.

After adding the Black & White adjustment layer, the Default preset becomes active in the Adjustments panel, converting the layer to a neutral monochromatic image.

Step 2: In the Adjustments panel, check Tint. This adds a virtual tone to the image.

Step 3: Click the swatch to the right of the Tint check box to open the Color Picker window. Use this window to select the color of the tint that will be added to the image.

After selecting the tint, click OK to close the Color Picker.

I suggest cutting the opacity of a Black & White adjustment layer used for the purpose of adding a tint or tone down to the 20% to 25% range so that the effect doesn’t seem overwhelming.

Hôtel de Sully—The Hôtel de Sully is a Parisian hôtel particulier, or private palace, around the corner from the Place des Vosges in the Marais. The Marais is notable because it is the one part of old Paris that was not razed to the ground when Louis XVI’s urban planner Baron Haussmann ploughed boulevards wide enough for troops to march through the city. While the name Marais refers to the medieval alleyways of the first arrondissement of Paris built on marshland, the Place de Vosges has been occupied by royalty since the 16th century and is considered the premiere model for arcaded urban squares all over the world.

An early owner of the Hôtel de Sully was the fabulously wealthy superintendent to King Henry IV. The Duc de Sully and his descendents added courtyards, wings, and decorative elements.

To photograph the Hôtel de Sully, I set my tripod up in the court most immediately adjacent to the Place des Vosges and made a bracketed series of exposures. In a mischievous mood in post-production, I pasted a miniaturized fractal version of the overall image into the door in the Hôtel leading to the next courtyard.

Nikon D300, 24mm, eight exposures at shutter speeds ranging from 1/60 of a second to 3 seconds, each exposure at f/25 and ISO 200, tripod mounted; processed in Photoshop and Silver Efex Pro, and converted to sepia using Photoshop Black & White adjustment layers with Tint checked.

Split Toning

Split toning means adding two different tones to an image. Classically, this was accomplished using chemical baths that impacted highlights and dark areas differently. Split toning is therefore often considered an effect that treats dark tones and highlights differently—but there is no reason to limit the effect to this traditional use.

You can use the Split Toning tools available in Adobe Camera RAW and Lightroom to easily add a classical split toning effect—where the highlights and shadows have different added tints.

In Photoshop, there are a number of different approaches to achieving a split toning effect.

Rooftops over Paris—I love the rooftops of Paris and often look for high perches where I can make semi-abstract compositions based on the apparent anarchic jumble. In this case, I climbed the 422 stairs to the observation platform on the top of the south tower of Notre-Dame cathedral, and looked for an interesting composition with my camera.

To enhance the image that resulted, I used split toning. The slate roofs are processed differently than the sides of the buildings based on the color values of the two kinds of subject matter to better emphasize the patterns involved.

Nikon D300, 90mm, 1/320 of a second at f/9 and ISO 200, hand held; processed in ACR, Photoshop, and Silver Efex Pro.

If you want the traditional split between highlights and shadows, you can use the Color Range window (in Photoshop choose Select Color Range) to make separate selections of highlight areas and shadow areas. With each selection, create a mask. Invert the mask to apply the desired tint only to highlights, and only to shadows using any of the techniques for applying color I’ve shown you.

Another alternative is to use layers and masking to paint in whatever tones you want for visual effect. To heck with tradition! It’s good to know some photo history so the context of modern digital image making is clearer. However, why be limited by the chemical photo techniques of the past?

Winter Vista—The difference in feeling between the foreground trees and the mountains in the background made this winter Yosemite image seem a natural for split toning. I used a light, warm sepia tone for the highlights, and a darker sepia tone for the darker areas of the photo.

Nikon D200, 27mm, 1/350 of a second at f/10 and ISO 100, tripod mounted; converted to black and white, and toned using Photoshop.