The Group

Toning

Hue/Saturation

1. Add a hue/saturation adjustment layer to your image and click on the "Colorize" check box at the bottom right of the dialogue box. The image will probably be toned a yucky red colour and possibly fully saturated (depending on what you last used).
2. As a starting point set the Hue slider to about 28 and the Saturation slider to about 18. This should produce a sepia toned image. You may want to adjust Lightness to +5 or so. These are only starting points and by changing the hue you can tone to any garish colour you choose and then adjust Saturation/Lightness to taste.

Split Toning

1. Tone your image using steps i. and ii. above. (You must use an adjustment layer as we need to make a copy of the original colour image.)
2. Duplicate the background layer and drag the duplicate so that it is the top-most layer (above the hue/saturation adjustment layer).
3. Select the background copy. Turn off the other layers so that they are not visible - not absolutely necessary, but it avoids confusion later.
4. Use Select > Color Range to select colours in your original image that you want to have the second tone. Select the first colour with the eyedropper in the dialogue box and add more tones or remove tones using the + or - eyedroppers. The Fuzziness control allows you to control the range of colours selected. Click OK when you are satisfied and after a few seconds the original layer will (probably) have lots of marching ants all over it.
5. Use Select > Feather with a 3 to 5 pixel feather to avoid harsh edges. Then Select > Inverse and hit the "Delete" key to remove the parts that will not have the second tone.
6. Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and tone the background copy to taste (colorize). Note: to get a grey tone set the saturation to zero.
7. Use Layer > Group With Previous to link this adjustment layer only with the background copy. Switch on the remaining layers and you should have a split toned image.
8. You can now go back and adjust the hue or saturation of each of the two tones using their respective adjustment layers. You can even use the Opacity control on the adjustment layers to reduce the severity of the tones.

Duotones

1. Convert your image to monochrome by Image>Mode>Grayscale and when asked if you want to discard colour information answer "Yes"
2. Convert to a Duotone with Image>Mode>Duotone (Photoshop won't let you go straight from an RGB image to a Duotone so you need to use steps a. and b.)
3. The duotone image will appear based on the last duotone preset you used or plain black (I think) if you have not used duotones before. The duotone dialogue box will also appear showing you the tones used.
4. To choose a more appropriate tone click on the "Load ..." button and a selection of presets will appear. It is worth looking around the Presets folder and its sub-folders for Duotones, Quadtones and Tritones. Within the sub-directories are a vast array of toning settings including various sepias. Select one that takes your fancy and click OK on the Duotone dialogue.
5. If you later want to change to another preset you need to click on Image>Mode>Duotone to open the dialogue box again.
6. You can do split toning by changing the duotone curves in the dialogue box if you feel adventurous. Just double-click on the little curve adjacent to the toning colour you want to adjust. The curves you can set are a bit limited so the main benefit of this method is using it for "standard" toning.

CMYK Curves

1. Convert your image from RGB to CMYK. It must be on a single layer (or you need to ask the conversion process to flatten it for you).
2. Convert to monochrome by Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
3. Add a Curves adjustment layer and adjust the C, M, Y and K channels to taste. A couple of starting points are given below.
   Sepia-ish. Set the following points on the curves.

   Cyan In/Out: 0/0; 60/22; 100/65
   Magenta In/Out: 0/0; 40/13; 100/30
   Yellow In/Out: 0/0; 25/20; 100/40
   Black In/Out: 0/0; 50/44; 100/100.

   Split Toned:

   Cyan In/Out: 0/0; 35/63; 50/39; 61/0; 100/0
   Magenta In/Out: 0/0; 40/13; 100/30
   Yellow In/Out: 0/0; 25/20; 100/40
   Black In/Out: 0/0; 50/44; 100/100.

4. Flatten and convert back to RGB before printing

Monochrome

From B/W Negatives

• General wisdom suggests that scanning b/w negatives in colour is best. I have no experience of this, but it seems likely that it will give somewhat more subtle definition in some cases.
• Once scanned, the RGB channels can be used as suggested below to extract the required quality from the channels and combine them using the Channel Mixer.
• A number of people reported that just printing with black ink produces brownish prints on certain papers. No conclusive findings about which papers to avoid however.
• If anyone has direct comparisons of printing a mono image with all inks versus printing the same image with only black it would be good to share experiences. For example, does one or other method produce greater density, more subtle tones, or does the colour print produce nasty colour casts in certain situations?

From Colour (RGB) Originals

• A mono image only shows variations in luminosity. Colour contrast (hue or saturation contrast) is frequently lost when converting to mono.
• How do you convert to mono? The results obtained from desaturating the image and from converting to greyscale are different. Taking the Luminosity channel from the Lab mode version of the image is identical to converting to greyscale.
• You can also use the R, G or B channel for your mono - this can be a bit like shooting mono film with a filter, e.g.. red, yellow etc.. Or you can convert to CMYK and use the C, M or Y channel. Or you can mix these to your own taste.
• The standard Photoshop greyscale conversion combines 30% Red, 60% Green and 10% Blue. This may not be ideal in many cases.
• A technique for getting an idea of what hue/saturation contrast is being lost from your image is as follows:
  1. Make a new layer which is a copy of your colour image
  2. Insert a new (blank) layer underneath this copy and fill the new layer with pure green. (Set the foreground colour to 0, 255, 0 and use Edit>Fill>Foreground with blending mode Normal.)
  3. Go to the copy of your image in the layers palette and set the blending mode to Hue and then to Saturation.
  4. Look for areas of your image which contain important parts of the image which stand out strongly from their neighbouring areas in one or both of these blending modes. These are parts of the image where important contrast will be lost when you convert to greyscale - and parts you might want to try to enhance during conversion to mono.
  5. (Blending in Luminosity mode gives an impression of what the standard greyscale conversion will look like.
• It is now worth looking at the individual colour channels (R, G, B) to see what detail is in each of these bearing in mind the areas that showed up in the Hue and saturation blends above.
• To convert to mono flexibly, use the Channel Mixer (preferably as an adjustment layer). Set the Monochrome box in the Channel Mixer, which will set the output channel to "Gray". For a "standard" conversion set Red to 30%, Green to 60% and Blue to 10%. However, the power of this is that you can change these, in particular you could have 70% Red and 30% blue if you feel that this will enhance areas that would be lost in the "standard" greyscale conversion.
• You can also select particular areas in the usual way (lasso tool etc.) before creating the Channel Mixer adjustment layer so that those areas can selectively emphasise certain features, e.g.. from one channel or a different combination.
• You can subtract a proportion of a channel, just as you can add one. However, note that any pixel which results in a value less than zero will appear black, just as any which are more than 100% will go to white.
• In summary, starting from a colour image allows you to filter in Photoshop rather than putting a yellow or red filter on the camera when you take the shot on mono film.

Colour Correction

• Try auto levels, auto contrast and auto color (Photoshop 7 only) - these produce reasonable results for most images but sometimes fail spectacularly
• Inspect your image's histogram using levels. If there is a "cliff" at the extreme left or right it probably indicates that you under- or over-exposed it. If you have another version which you took with exposure compensation that may be a better choice
• In Levels, try pressing the Alt key (Option on Mac) and dragging the shadow or highlight slider. As you move the slider towards the centre of the histogram the parts of the image that will be forced to black or white are shown. (This feature has been there in several versions of PS but did not work with adjustment layers up to PS6)
• Use Colour Samplers to monitor colour of important parts of your image by numbers. These can be set by selecting the colour sampler tool (one of the eyedropper family on the tools palette) and clicking on the part of the image to be sampled. Up to 4 samplers can be added to an image. The details are shown in the Info palette.
• For colour correction find one or two points that should be neutral tone. These should be adjusted to have the same values for their R, G and B components, but they probably won't at first. Place colour samplers there and open Curves (adjustment layer for preference, but it also works with Image > Adjust > Curves).
• If the overall tone is too blue you will probably see your colour samplers show something like: R=104, G=108, B=135. The aim now is to adjust the R and G curves to change these to be nearer the B value (or change the B curve if the image is over-bright. The info palette is now showing two sets of numbers eg. R 104/104. As you change the R curve the second number will change and show the new colour of that pixel. Adjust the curve keeping an eye on the info readout. Do the same for G.
• If you need to change overall "exposure" use the RGB curve

Selections

• Marquees: If you have ever found it irritating to define an elliptical or rectangular selection to exactly the right size, try using "Transform Selection". Make a rough selection of the appropriate shape and then right-click inside the selection. Select "Transform Selection" and handles will appear. These can be used to stretch the selection. A further right click will allow you to select other transformations - "Distort" is particularly useful and allows the corners to be stretched to place them exactly. Finally, as always, hit return to accept the transformation. Sadly, this is not available in Photoshop Elements.
• Save/Load: It is worth saving your selections periodically. A complex selection can be built up in stages, for example several areas in a scene can be carefully selected and each saved as, say, W1, W2, W3 and W4. They can then be combined by loading W1, then loading and adding W2, W3 and W4. The Save and Load Selection commands are found under the Select menu in both Photoshop and Elements.
• Guides: In Photoshop you can often accurately align selections to image objects by placing 4 guides on their extremities and then with "Snap to Guides" switched on, drag out a marquee. To create guides use the "View" menu to turn rulers on and then drag a guide from the ruler until you reach the right place. If the guide is in the wrong place you will need to use the move tool to adjust it. "Snap" options are also set on the "View" menu.
• Quick Mask (Photoshop): After an initial selection has been made switch to quick mask mode (type "Q" or use icon near bottom of toolbox) and paint with white to increase the selected area or paint in black to decrease it. The masked area will normally show up as a pink overlay unless you have changed its colour. Type "Q" to return to the normal "marching ants" selection mode. This is extremely useful for fine-tuning a rough selection.
• Feather (Photoshop): It is generally best to set Feather for selection tools to zero because it is difficult to judge the effect of the feather until the selection is made. Instead, once the unfeathered selection has been made (usually a pixel or so inside the required edge) switch to Quick Mask mode and the use Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and adjust the amount to taste, then switch back to to marching ants mode.
• Feather (Elements): Photoshop Elements does not have Quick Mask mode. In general it is still best to set Feather in selection tools to 0 and then use "Feather" within the "Select" menu to adjust the amount. There will be little if any noticeable effect on the marching ants, so you will have to carry out some action (such as a hue change with an adjustment layer) to see the extent of the feather. If it needs change use the History palette to backtrack and try a different value.
• Colour Selections (1) (Photoshop only): The Color Range tool (on the Select Menu in Photoshop) can be very useful for selecting areas of a particular colour in the image, eg. a red car. To do this, open the Color Range dialogue and select "Sampled Colors", then use the cursor/mouse to identify an example of the desired colour. Click on other shades of the selected colour range while holding down the shift key (or select the "Add to Sample" box at the bottom of the dialogue box and then click on shades). The small image in the dialogue box will show the selected areas as white or grey. Now adjust the Fuzziness slider to see if the selection can be made more accurate. Once satisfied click OK. This is particularly useful for fine details, such as hair.
• Colour Selections (2): If you need to change the hue of an object or change its saturation, a Hue/Saturation adjustment may produce a suitable selection. Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and in the dialogue set "Edit" to one of the colours, it does not matter which, but not "Master". Then use the colour sampler to select the range in a similar way to that above. You will notice that a range of tones are indicated in the sliders at the bottom. The vertical bars indicate the range of tones that will be affected by the new hue/saturation/lightness settings and the effect will tail off to where the triangular markers are. You can fine-tune the range manually by dragging these markers if you like. Now use the hue or saturation sliders to get the effect you are looking for before clicking OK. This works with both Photoshop and Elements.