Varis PhotoMedia Tutorials©2002, Lee Varis

Welcome

This tutorial has been prepared for the photographer who is striving to learn digital imag-ing. I make an effort to supply current information about digital imaging techniques and general information about computer technology that is pertinent for today’s professional photographer. This information is based on my personal experience down in the trenches at the front lines of the digital revolution that is sweeping the photographic industry.

One thing is certain: all of the information contained herein will be obsolete in a fairly short time - how short, I can’t say. Be forewarned that things are changing very rapidly and the only way to stay competitive is to keep learning. I devote a good percentage of my time learning new things and I am attempting to share what I learn with you but this in-formation will go out of date so you should be flexible and not take this tutorial to be the ultimate statement on the subject.

I consider the knowledge contained in any of my tutorials to be public domain but the form in which this knowledge is presented is copyrighted as are all the photographic im-ages used as examples. Unless otherwise noted all imagery is copyrighted by Lee Varis and any use of these images without permission is forbidden. You are permited to use this tutorial for your personal education - you are not permited to sell or otherwise distribute this material. Please contact me for any other use.

I maintain a web site where I post additional information, examples and tutorials. You are invited to browse various portfolios as well as download free material and purchase addi-tional tutorials at:

http://www.varis.com

I hope you find the information contained in this tutorial helpful. Please let me know if you find any errors or ommissions - I’m always trying to improve these materials! You may contatct me via email at:

varis@varis.com

best regards, Lee Varis 2002

Download Sample Files

Sample files for this tutorial are available for download. All images are copyrighted © 2003 by Lee Varis unless otherwise noted. Use of these files is restricted to personal education in this tutorial - no other use is permited. By clicking the download but-ton below you are agreeing to these terms.

Download Files

These files are compressed in a Binhex archive. To use these files you must first extract them from the archive using a file compression utility. You can download the excellent free “Stuffit Expander” utility from Aladin Software by clicking below:

Stuffit Expander

Choose your platform from the buttons at the top of the web page - Mac, Windows and Unix

B+W in Colorcreating color toning effects in Photoshop

Monochromatic images don’t have to be totally gray. The creative use of color in B+W im-agery has a long tradition. Silver bromide prints were often “toned” using various chemi-cals to impart a color to an otherwise colorless image. Sepia,Selenium,Gold,Blue toners were used sometimes with a “split-tone” effect. All of these effects and more are possible with digital techniques that offer far more control (and much less odor)!

Before you can colorize your grayscale image you must convert to RGB. Select Image > Mode > RGB to get your grayscale image into your default RGB workspace. You can then “colorize” your image using Hue/Saturation - Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

Check the “Colorize” checkbox and move the hue and satura-tion sliders until you get the look you’re after- here we’ve got a strong reddish brown sell-enium tone. You can duplicate just about any kind of color tone using this approach. The more sophisticated look of a split tone requires a little more work.

First, duplicate the background to a new layer by dragging it over the new layer icon

at the bottom of the layer stack.

Turn off the top layer by click-ing the “eye icon”

Then select the bot-tom layer– we will color-ize this layer fi rst, like we did on the previous page: Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation

Now turn on the top layer and select it. We will give this layer a contrasting tone– instead of warm, let’s try a cool tone

Split Tone Technique

We will use advanced blending options to control how the top layer interacts with the bottom layer. Go to the layer options menu- the triangle at the upper right of the Lay-ers palette- and select “Blending Options”

You will get the Layer Style dialog - here we are concerned with the sliders at the lower part of the dialog in an area marked “Blend If”. There are quite a few interesting things we can do here but for now we will use the top layer slider to determine a “break point” where we will start to see through to the bottom layer. Drag the white point triangle to the left until we star to see the warm layer highlights. This break occurs suddenly wherever the image reaches the gray value of the white slider - every-thing having a value higher than where the slider is set becomes transparent, thus revealing the underlying “warm” image.

Now we need to smooth the transition from cool to warm in the image...

Hold down the Option/Alt key and drag the left have of the triangle away to the left. The transition in color softens. You can control exactly how the color change occurs by adjusting the sliders.

A completely different look is achieved by revers-ing the blend - set the black point slider as above to get cool highlights and warm shadows. This split tone effect can be dramatic like this or more subtle depending on how saturated your Hue/Saturation colorizing is.

If two “tones” are good, would three “tones” be better? Make a third layer above the oth-ers and colorize this to a deep purple – go for the darkest “color” but don’t make it too saturated. We will make this layer only the deepest shadow areas. Set up the advanced blending options like the screenshot at the right....

Tri-Toned Duo-Toned

More complex colorizing effects can best be achieved using the “Gradient Map” adjustment layer. Select “Gradient Map” from the adjust-ment layer menu accessed by clicking on the new adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the “Layers” palette. [1] Click on the triangle to the right of the gradient in the “Gradient Map” dialog [2] Select the “Violet, Orange” gradient in the resulting gradient picker. Click inside the gradient to bring up the “Gradient Editor”[3] You will use the Editor to customize the gradi-ent - the top pointers control the opacity of the gradient - leave these alone. The bottom point-ers determine the colors in the gradient. Click-ing anywhere along the bottom edge of the gradient you can add a new color “stop” to the gradient...

[1]

[2]

[3]

You can drag these new color pointers around (while you preview the effect in your document) and also adjust the blend between colors by drag-ging the small diamonds between the “stops”. Click on the “Color” patch in the “Stops” area to bring up a color picker that allows you to select a new color. Once you have fi nished design-ing a new gradient you can type in a name and click the “New” button to add it to your gradient presets. Hit “OK” to return to the Gradient Map dialog and “OK” again to apply the effect. Here I have created a very wild saturated color crossover effect that progresses from black through purple,red,orange,yellow to white.

We can simply change the opacity of the Gradient Map layer in the Layers palette to create a whole range of more subtle effects. The big advantage of using Gradi-ent Maps is that you can build up multi-color split-tones with just one layer. The disadvantage is that it is a bit more diffi cult to control the interaction of color tone and crossover points using the gradient editor.

Besides Peter Max coloring you can also achieve super “solarized” and other psychedelic effects by using more radical gradients– its great fun to experiment with!

Varis PhotoMedia Tutorials©2002, Lee Varis

Thank you

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. The techniques outlined here represent just the tip of the iceberg. Photoshop is a very deep application - a person could spend years studying it and there will always be more to learn. If all this seems a little overwhelming, take a break, do what you feel comfortable doing in Photoshop and return to this tutorial again later on. Often, it takes several weeks for a particular technique to sink in so give it time.

I have other tutorials available online (navigate to the methods section), some are free and some are available for a modest charge. See tutorials and some examples of my work at:

http://www.varis.com

There are many learning resourses available on the web - here are a few other sites with good information:http://www.russellbrown.com http://www.creativepro.comhttp://luminous-landscape.com/ http://www.imaging-resource.com/HOWTO.HTMhttp://www.photoworkshop.com/ http://www.adobe.com/misc/training.htmlhttp://studio.adobe.com/expertcenter/photoshop/main.html

http://www.ledet.com/margulis/articles.html

http://www.steves-digicams.com/ http://www.photoshopuser.com/http://www.handson.nu/ http://photoshopgurus.info/

Thes last two links are typical of the majority of Photoshop tutorial sites - they are fo-cused on cool graphics effects not photography. You might want to look over this material anyway - sometimes you can learn alot about basic functions in Photoshop.

I’m always trying to improve these materials and I’m always open to your feedback. You may contatct me via email at:

varis@varis.combest regards, Lee Varis 2002