Toning photos.
In this lesson we will learn to tint a photo in different colors at the same time. This effect is often used to display the settings of printers and monitors. The idea of the effect is simple – take a photo, divide it into sections of equal size (usually 4 sections) and tint them in different colors or in different shades of the same color.
To display printer settings, for example, a photo is tinted in 4 basic ink colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). In monitor calibration software, different shades of the same color are used to show what the image looks like on an un-configured monitor. These are just two examples of using this effect.
You can toned your photo in any colors depending on the subject of the image, the mood you want to convey. Use shades of red, orange and yellow to depict an autumn park, or shades of blue for a cold winter landscape. Toned 3 of 4 sections in one color, and one highlight contrast in order to focus on a particular part of the image.
In Photoshop, creating this effect is quite simple. First, we divide the photo into 4 sections using the guides, use adjustments Hue / Saturation (Hue / Saturation) to set the tone sections. In the end, we can see how, using an extra layer of Hue / Saturation, quickly change all 4 colors at once.
Our lesson uses black and white photography. But you can work with color.
As a result, the image will be like this:
It is not necessary to use the same colors. It all depends on your imagination.
Let’s start!
Step 1.
Before tinting a photo we need to divide it into sections. For this we use the guides. Guides are not the most interesting thing in Photoshop, but they can make the work in the program much easier. To divide the photo into 4 sections of equal size, we need 3 guides. Create the first guide.
Select View / View> New Guide (View> New Guide). In the menu that appears, select the orientation (Orientation) of the guide (we need vertical (Vertical) guides), in the position box (Position) we write 25%.
Click OK. Now you can see our guide. It passes from top to bottom in the first quarter of the photo:
Step 2.
Add a second guide, putting in the position of the 50%.
The second guide runs exactly in the middle of the image.
Step 3.
Add a third guide. Again choose View> New Guide (View> New Guide), this time the position value is set to 75%. Make sure to choose the vertical orientation of the guide:
Click OK.
With the help of these guides, we divided the image into 4 equal parts. Now you can begin toning each section.
Step 4.
Make sure the guides show is on. To do this, open the View menu, in the Show tab (Snap to) there should be a tick opposite to Guides.
Step 5.
Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool in the tool palette, or click M for a quick call.
Step 6.
Select the first section of our image. Guides, as it were, “attract” a selection to themselves.
Step 7.
Add a new adjustment layer Hue / Saturation (Hue / Saturation). To do this, click in the layer palette on the miniature Create a correction layer and select Hue / Saturation.
You can also create a new adjustment layer by calling the Layers> New Adjustment Layer> Hue / Saturation> Layer> New Adjustment Layer> Hue / Saturation menu.
Let’s see what has changed in the Layers window. Now we have the Hue / Saturation adjustment layer located above the original image. A mask was applied to the layer, with ¾ filled with black, only ¼ (the one that was selected) is white. This means that the hue / saturation adjustment layer is applied only to the selected part of the image.
This will allow us to regulate independently all four sections.
Step 8.
Let’s go back to the hue / saturation adjustment window. We need to toned the image, so we tick the “Toning”.
Step 9.
Drag the Hue slider to choose the color you want to use.
Once you select a color, click OK. Now you can see that the first part of our image is toned in the selected color.
Step 10. Change the layer blending mode to Chromaticity (Color).
We do this so that the correction affects only the color of the image, not its brightness. The differences may not be visible, it all depends on the color that you chose and the original image.
Step 11. Select the second section of the image.
Step 12. Add a new hue / saturation adjustment layer.
You can see that the selected area remains in the mask of the white layer. That is, the applied changes touch only her.
Step 13.
Select Toning in the window of the regulation of color tone / saturation. Then move the Color tone slider to select a color. For a smooth transition of colors the difference between them should not be higher than 10 – 20 units.
Click OK only after choosing a color. Now toned the second section of the image.
Step 14. Change the blending mode of the layer to Color.
Step 15.
Repeat steps 11–14 to tint the remaining sections of the image. Select the area, select the new adjustment layer Hue / Saturation, set the Toning checkbox in the adjustments window, select the color, click OK, change the layer blending mode to Chroma.
When you’re done, you should have four layers. Hue / Saturation in the layers palette, each for its own section.
That’s what should be about.
Step 16. Remove the guides so that they do not interfere with the perception of the image as a whole. To do this, select View> Delete Guides (View> Clear Guides).
The guides are gone. This is our toned photo:
Step 17.
Now let’s add a stroke around each of the four sections to make the color change effect more noticeable. To do this, select one of the layers and add a layer style to it. Stroke (Stroke).
Set a stroke size of 1 pix, position – inside (Inside), color – black.
Now we have a clear outline of one of the layers.
Step 18.
Now that we’ve stroke a single layer, we can just copy the layer style and apply it to the others. Choose Layer> Layer Style> Copy Layer Style (Layer> Layer Style> Copy Layer Style).
Step 19. Select the three other layers at once (select with the Shift or Ctrl key pressed).
Step 20.
Now apply the stroke style for the remaining three layers. Choose Layer> Layer Style> Paste Layer Style (Layer> Layer Style> Paste Layer Style).
All four sections are separated from each other by a contour (I remind you, this is done in order to better show how the colors will change all at once, you do not need to separate your image !!!)
Step 21
Create another adjustment layer Hue / Saturation. With this layer, you can easily and quickly change all four colors at once. The layer mask is all white – the changes will affect the entire image.
Step 22. Moving the Color Tone slider will change the colors of our photo.
Choosing a value of -123, the effect went from red-yellow to blue-violet.
Change the Color Tone value to +170:
The colors changed to a green and blue gamut:
Compare with the initial image:
To make the image brighter, you can change the Saturation:
The colors of our photo now look more intense:
That’s what happened with us!
