This dramatic effect is an ideal alternative to black and white. Instead of being pure black and white, split toning creates a multicolor toning effect where the shadows and highlights are of two different colors. This effect, which was a popular film developing method, can now be done digitally in minutes. Find out how to make your photos look breathtaking with this classic split toning effect.
Sample PSD (Photoshop Document)
Before you begin
The split toning effect can be done much faster with the latest version of ACR (Adobe Camera RAW), Adobe Lightroom, and possibly Apple Aperture – please confirm this with me in the comments if you know.This Photoshop tutorial is meant as a solution in case you do not have any of those options. For example, editing a JPEG file with Photoshop.
Split Toning Photoshop Tutorial
Step 1
As usual, begin by opening a photo into Photoshop. If this is your first time following this tutorial, use a close up portrait photo. This split toning Photoshop effect works well with portraits but not very well with landscapes.
Step 2
First, if you didn’t open a black and white photo, you need to convert the image to black and white. There are many ways of doing this but the easiest method with Photoshop CS3 is to add a Black & White adjustment layer. If you’re using an older version of Photoshop, you can also use:
- Hue/Saturation
This method is for beginners. Simply set the saturation to -100 and click OK. If you want to be more precise, you can also go into each color and adjust the brightness. - Channel Mixer
This method is for the more advance Photoshop user who understands how to use the Channel Mixer to create a black and white photo.
In the layers palette, click on the new adjustment layer button and select the method you want to use to convert your photo to black and white.
I’m using Photoshop CS3 so I chose to use the Black & White tool to make my color photo black and white. Here, I adjusted the settings to create the best tonal information. There isn’t one setting that will work with every photo – you’ll have to adjust the settings yourself.
Step 3
Now that our images are black and white, we’ll add a color balance adjustment layer. This adjustment layer is the key layer that will create the split toning effect. Go ahead and add a color balance adjustment layer.
Inside the color balance tool, you can see that you can modify the shadows, midtones, and highlights. We will be working with only the shadows and highlights. What we’re going to do with this tool is alter the color balance of the shadows and highlights so that it creates a color tint.
First, toggle the highlight option and use the settings below. Your image should have a warm tint.
Now, select toggle the shadows and use the settings below. This will add a cool tint that will create a balance with the warm tint that we applied previously.
You can play around with the settings to achieve different color results but leave the settings alone if this is your first time following this Photoshop tutorial. Below is what the image looks like after applying the color balance adjustment layer. It has the split toning effect, but it might not be the colors that we want. In the next step, we’ll use the Hue/Saturation tool to modify the colors.
Step 4
Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. With this layer, we can alter the hue of both the colors and adjust the saturation.
In the Hue/Saturation tool, adjust the hue to get the color effect that you like. Below is the settings I used to create a warmer and slightly more vivid effect.
Step 5
Finally, you can decide to add more contrast. This step is optional, but you will find that many times, the split toning effect will make your image look a little dull. You can add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer to enhance the contrast.
If you’re using Photoshop CS3, add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer. It has been greatly improved from the previous version of Photoshop. If you’re using Photoshop CS2 or older, add a levels adjustment layer instead.
With the brightness/contrast tool, you can simply adjust the contrast input slider to enhance the contrast. If you’re using the Levels tool, move the left and right input sliders towards the middle to increase the contrast.
Here’s a comparison of the color image, black and white, and split toning. As you can see, the split toning is like a step between a color photo and a black and white photo. It is a beautiful effect for portraits and more and more photographers are using this.
wow….that is great.
very very thanks
tank u tank u tank u !!!!!!! uuuuu yaaaaa !
madarcho bhut kush ho rha h ye sab comments padh ki..bhosdi ke kiya kya h tune,..puri pic ko ek hi color tone me change kar ke maa or chod di pic ki behen ke lode…teri maa ki chut..
behen ke lode ek color tone mein change kar diya puri pic ko or maa chod di iski or in chutiyo ko ye sab gandupanti dikhaa ke khush b ho rha h madarcho….
it’s a very good tutorial for beginners.
Great Article!
I will share it on facebook! Thank you very much
This is wonderful tutorial thank you.
Awesome!
One of the most in-depth
photo manip tuts
out there — excellent job
thanx nice tone……..
Thank you this is awesomeYour. I am a mixed media artist this will hep me with my efforts at creating art
aweseme! now why couldn’t I have found this site before dumping $$ for membership sites with tutorials???
thanks…great tutorial….helped me out a lot 😀 cheers
Great article, useful tips!
Don’t forget that split toning can be very powerful when used on color images too! It can induce various moods just by discretely adding color casts. Or to take it even further, it can become strong cross-processing (also works well with strong vignettes!).
This was very useful for a project I just did for a picture on the front of a greeting card. Turned out great! Thanks!
Excellent tutorial! Love the results!
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Great tips, thanks for taking the time to share.
Easy to follow and very effective, thanks a lot! 🙂
hey i have photoshop elements 8 and i cant find the color balance tool.. can somebody please help me
Your split toning tutorial is excellent. Although I Have CS1, I also have Aperture 2. Have you discovered a way to to do this split toning imaging in Aperture Yet?
Trevor Lorton, Adelaide, South Australia
Wow your tequiniques are definatly very very good! this is the best iv see so far! i love using these tutorials! keep it up!
-inspiring photographer
Wonderful! this is like the third time I’ve used your tutorial… & i got a little bit more gutsie with the colors. It still worked great! Clearly written & simple… couldn’t ask for anything better. =]
Marvelous.
how do you edit a picture your self?
ok verry nice
use photoshop for two months now and it worked all verry well and it is verry clear written thank you
Thank you for this tutorial it was very useful 🙂
I clicked on an ad, hope it will make you some money ^^
Virginie.
Very nice tutorial. Thanks alot m8!
I will use it more :D.
Very interesting alternative for black&white. I’ll use it not only once 🙂 Thanks.
thanks so much, i love it!
Thanks a lot for this tutorial, the effect is truly amazing. Keep up the good work.
This is a great help to improve my photo’s and I’m sure that I will use this! Thank you very much, also compliment for the clear explaination
Nice tutorial!! thnx so much!
I like the footer note about the ads too.
This is a nice toning effect, I’ll be using this.