How do I do this!? "duo-color photos"

natephoto

I was searching around for cool photo edits and found this online:

http://www.playactionshots.com/duotone.html

now that's cool! How can I do that? something with masks in photoshop? Easiest way?

Thanks!
Nate

pyrtek

That's not duotone, that's selective coloring. In CS3 create a Black & White
adjustment layer, then paint with black on its mask to reveal the color beneath
in the areas you want to be colored.

cabbey

Agreed, that's selective color, not duotone.

Duotone is like a black and white image, except it's not black and white, but some other color pair. A common duotone treatment is what most of us would call sepiatoned... using sepia for the white and a dark brown for the black.

I suppose technically, B&W is an instance of a duotone. Probably the most common.

Photoshop has a convert to duotones option in most modern versions, along with tritones and quadtones.

heinsite

To create a duotone in CS3 you have to first convert your image to Greyscale (Image-Mode-Greyscale). The duotone option won't be available until you have a greyscale. Then convert to Duotone (Image-Mode-Duotone). At this point you'll be able to select what second color you'd like to use for an ink to mix with black. You can select from different books and many different color tints. After that you'll be free to adjust levels, contrast and anything else you need to do.

This method doesn't stop at duotone either. You can create tritones and quadtones. There's lots of room to experiment.

As mentioned in other threads here I have to endorse Scott Kelby's books too. He's got an oddball sense of humor that can take a bit of getting used to, but once past that the information and instruction is expert, complete, and easy to follow. His latest CS3 book lays this method out very clearly.

pyrtek

heinsite wrote:

To create a duotone in CS3 you have to first convert your image to Greyscale (Image-Mode-Greyscale). The duotone option won't be available until you have a greyscale. Then convert to Duotone (Image-Mode-Duotone).

Did you look at the sample the OP linked? It's not duotone.

GJMPhoto

Another way

pyrtek wrote:

That's not duotone, that's selective coloring. In CS3 create a Black & White
adjustment layer, then paint with black on its mask to reveal the color beneath
in the areas you want to be colored.

The other way is to select the subject, copy the selection (in color) to a new layer above, then turn the underlayer into a black and white - this will be a little safer and you can even play around with relative sizes, blurs, etc.

I did this technique on my posters (www.garymorgenphotograpy.com/posters) - the first volleyball poster has the B&W (sepia) treatment - the setting girl is actually in the original background photo (the sepia girl is actually from another photo).

On the tennis poster, the foreground serve is a copied layer of the girl serving, then the background is zoomed and blurred to create motion.

- Gary.

pyrtek

GJMPhoto wrote:

The other way is to select the subject, copy the selection (in color) to a new layer above, then turn the underlayer into a black and white - this will be a little safer [...]

What do you mean safer? In what way?

cabbey

pyrtek wrote:

What do you mean safer? In what way?

The process suggested does not do permanent changes to the data. This way you can always "undo" that step, or modify it later without any impact to the quality or having to redo anything you've done since. I do the same for all my airbrushing, I always put it on a layer and do not modify the original pixels, only cover them up with the layer. That makes it pretty easy to undo part of it, just erase that part of the layer; or see before and afters, just make the layer invisible or not.

pyrtek

cabbey wrote:

The process suggested does not do permanent changes to the data.

And how does my method do "permanent changes to the data"?

cabbey

pyrtek wrote:

And how does my method do "permanent changes to the data"?

Good question... I read the two processes in reverse.

GJMPhoto

Maybe safer isn't as good a choice as more flexible or more efficient. The zooming effect is a pretty good example. After blurring the background, I transformed it to be a little larger...the effect creates a zooming blur around around the sharp subject. While I suppose that would be possible with the other method, you'd be maintaining a whole image worth of pixels just to manipulate the pixels in the subject.

I'd imagine the mask on the subject layer would have to be everything except the subject anyway...

- Gary.

pyrtek

GJMPhoto wrote:

Maybe safer isn't as good a choice as more flexible or more efficient.

If you're doing just what the OP asked for, then I think a B&W adjustment
layer + mask is much more efficient than extracting the subject, placing
it on its own layer and messing about with the background.

natephoto

Hey guys,

Thanks for the responses. I actually played around with both ways, finding masks to be easier once I figured out how to do it.

Here's what I came up with for my first one! (below)



nate

cletus

Nice work, Nate