From the course: Photoshop: Advanced Adjustment Layers and Blend Modes

Creating duotones with a Black & White adjustment layer - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop: Advanced Adjustment Layers and Blend Modes

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Creating duotones with a Black & White adjustment layer

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- The black and white effect, doesn't have to be a complete black and white effect. Rather, you can introduce a subtle color cast or a dramatic one. One traditional technique is the duo tone or sepia tone that weaves in a slight color or pigment to the black and white image. In this case, you can see the overall effect. We use two adjustment layers. One to improve the contrast and another to bring out the black and white effect. Let's try it out. Here's the first image. I'll apply the adjustment layer for curves and just click auto and it makes a slight change. Remember, option click on auto, and you can take advantage of other controls like per channel contrast to get good richness. Now, I'll add the black and white adjustment, and this allows you to also click on auto. And you'll see that it makes its best attempt. Using the on image-tool you can also come in here and refine to create the balance that you want to really dial in the different shades. For example, I'll darken the blue there a little bit to get richer skies. And you see how we create our own custom black and white effect. And up here, is the option for tint. This introduces a color. Now by default, it's a bit strong, but you can come in here and dial in the results you need. Easily tweaking the saturation and the brightness of the tint color. You can also use the spectrum here to find a new one. And I generally favor using a lighter option. One of the reasons why I add the curves adjustment though, is so that I can go underneath, this way using the on-image tool, it's super simple to refine the exposure and the contrast, and I don't have to worry so much as I make tweaks to shifting the color. On its own, the curve looks a bit strong, but when combined with the duotone effect, it's giving me the results that I want. Remember as well, you can always back off that black and white adjustment, putting it at a value around 85 or 90 is a great way to bring back a hint of the original color. Notice how just a touch of the colors coming through, And it produces a very photographically, pleasing effect.

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