Duotones

In this tutorial I will teach you about duotones and how to use them. This technique is great for many things, so I know you will find this tutorial helpful and interesting.

To start out, grab a photo that you would like to duotone. Any photo will do. I am just using one of my personal stock photos.

Now to create a duotone go to Image> Mode> Grayscale. Click yes to any question that may come up.

Now go to Image > Mode > Duotones.

Now you can either pick Monotone, Duotone, Tritone, or Quadtone. I picked Quadtone. Pick whatever colors you like as well. Then accept whenever you have it the way you like.

It looks kind of cool but let’s say you don’t like the way it turned out. Then use gradient maps to soften the coloring, or add to the coloring. For this I am going to use a purple – orange gradient map. But first, we have to change our picture back to RGB coloring. So go to Image> Mode> RGB coloring. Now go to your gradient maps area and pick a gradient I am using this:

Now I set my gradient map on screen on 50% opacity. Now my picture is lightened a lot:

Now let’s say I want it darker, instead of lighter. What I am going to do is take the exact same gradient and set it on vivid light on 75% opacity.

With just duotoning and a gradient map I created a pretty cool sunset picture.

Okay so know I opened up a new photo. This is the photo I’m using:

That is another stock photo of mine. I am applying a simple blue-ish gray duotone. You can apply whatever duotone you would like.

Then add a gradient like this:

And look at that. Add a couple textures or something and you could have yourself a great horror/macabre photo manipulation.

So as you see through duotoning you can create great photos and duotoning will help further your abilities on what you can do in photoshop.

Topics: Color Alteration, Design, Photoshop