Before starting
Here we are for another complement of tutorial (more than a tuto). I will show you how to play with the split toning menu of lightroom...
Things you need
Nothing special, just the desire to try something new.. :)
The objective
The split toning will allow us to color our photo with grey levels. We can add only one colour for the overall photo, or affect a specific color to the highlights and another one for the shadows. I often use this technique for aging a photo. I will show you how to transform this classic black and white photo:
Into this timeless one:
First step: Setting up highlights
We have to go to the Split Toning menu of the develoment mode of Lightroom. For the expected result, I chose a color to apply to the highlights of the photo with the "Hue cursor". I chose a color which tents to the yellow, with the appropriate satturation:
Step 2: Setting up the shadows
I do the same for the shadows. I general I chose a color which tents to the blue with a low saturation level:
Last step: Balancing
After setting up highlights and shadows, I play smoothly with the balance cursor in order to equilibrate the effect between the highlights and the shadows:
We are done with that! Just keep in mind that there is nothing more efficient than practicing and trying things by yourself! Those tools are as powerful as easy to use, the most "difficult" thing is to understand how they work. If you get that, you get all!
Damien
