White on White

I posted this earlier today with a comment that it was an experiment

in split toning. I got laughed at and justifably so. If at first

you don't succeed go back to the drawing board. Think I got it this

time. In any event comments and suggestions are welcome.

It's beautiful, but I like it better without the dark strip at the top. Is it just me? My eyes are drawn to that dark top, and I want to just enjoy the horse. I really like the white on white. what is split toning?

Thank you Kim. I agree about the dark strip at the top. It is distracting. I could have cropped it and maybe I should have.

 

Split toning is not that difficult to do in photoshop but coming up with a concise definition is not that easy. Its too late for me to try and explain it tonight. I'll attempt to do that tomorrow when I am not falling asleep.

Well, it's #122 in Top Rated!

And its so much prettier than the other horse photo. But its a hundred places back. Oh well just goes to show you the draw the nude category has.

 

Anyway color toning of prints has been around almost as long as photography. We have all seen tens of thousands of sepia prints. That's probably the most common toning that's used but you can also use a lot of other colors tints. Split toning is simply a way of adding those color tints to a black and white print. With a split toned print the effect is more subtle than with a straight forward sepia toned print. I think its more attractive as well.

 

Split toning is a very old chemical dark room trick where you used several different toners on the same photo as you were printing it. Each toner worked on a different part of the photograph. It required a good deal of experience and even more in the way of expertise.

 

In the early 1980s I practically lived in a darkroom printing both color and black and white. I had a fair degree of proficiency but I wouldn't touch trying to do split toning with chemicals. Thankfully these days we have Photoshop and anyone can split tone a photo without making a mess.

 

Rather than try to describe the process myself, I'll refer you to a website that lays out the process. It is:

 

http://www.computer-darkroom.com./tutorials/tutorial_2_1.htm

 

The first part of that tutorial covers color to black and white conversion using the channel mixer. The last part covers split toning.

 

Some good examples of split toning can be seen at http://www.duke.edu/~ajs2/PAW/2004_13/

 

My ambition is to get split toning to do silver toned prints. I haven't quite figured out the settings yet. I saw one on photo.net that was so gorgeous it just made me ache. I have been searching for a way to get that tonal effect ever since. I know it was done with split toning but I don't know what parameters the photographer used. I'll figure it out one of these days.

 

Larry, thanks so much! I keep printing out all your instructions to keep in my Elements instr. book to play with later. I learn so much from you!

You are quite welcome. :)

hey Larry, great shot. I actually like the brown strip on the top.

Thank you Mihir.