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Split-Toning in Adobe Lightroom

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Cameron

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I was messing around with the Split Toning panel in Adobe Lightroom yesterday and found it rather simple to apply a sepia tone look to an already black and white photograph. If you aren’t aware, the word sepia is derived from the Greek word meaning “cuttlefish. Apparently, the cuttlefish looks like a squid and can give off a brownish ink, sort of like squids do. A sepia tone is a reddish brown monochrome tint that can help photos look like they’re antique or offer more of an emotional impact than a simple black and white can. I know many of you have heard of the word sepia in your travels, so I thought I’d add a bit more random knowledge for you to enjoy.

Creating a Sepia Tone Look with Split-Toning in Adobe Lightroom​

In today’s post, I’d like to walk you through the very straightforward process of applying a sepia tone to a black and white image in Adobe Lightroom. This shouldn’t be a long post because really, there are only five sliders to deal with and they’re all related.

Today’s Demo Image​

I wanted to use something that looked classic for this post because classic objects go hand in hand with any sepia application. Guitars are perfect for this sort of thing, so that’s what I went with.

guitar-head.jpg

Applying a Sepia Tone Look​

I’ve already got this photo imported into Lightroom and I’ve selected it in the Develop panel. I haven’t done any sort of modification to it. I’ll save that for later. In the right column, I clicked on the Split Toning arrow and can now see the sliders I’ll be using to make adjustments.

split-toning-panel.jpg

The way split toning works is like this; there are two primary things you can adjust, highlights and shadows. Within each of those, you can choose a color to apply and a strength, or saturation, for that color. Finally, you can balance out which you’d like to see more of adjusted, the highlights or the shadows. It’s very simple.

For this photo, since I’m going for a sepia look, I’d like to inject some yellow into things. To do this, I’ll push the Hue slider under the Highlights section to the right until it reaches the value of 40. Then, right below that, I’ll push the Saturation slider until it reaches a value of 35.

highlights-hue-saturation.jpg

Doing this won’t make a dramatic change, but it will give me some yellows in the highlights, which adds warmth.

added-yellows.jpg

Remember, the Split Toning panel simply adds two colors with varying degrees of strength to an image. You can use this panel for not only black and white photos, but full color ones as well.

Next, I’d like to fill the shadows with that classic feeling. To do this, I’ll push the Hue slider under the Shadows section to the right until it reaches a value of 25 for some wonderful orange and then I’ll push the corresponding Saturation slider to the right until it reaches a value of 50.

shadows-hue-saturation.jpg

This really adds a nice change to the photo.

adding-oranges.jpg

For the balance, I actually played around with this slider a bit and decided to leave it at . Moving it in either direction altered the appearance in a way I didn’t like.

Making Overall Adjustments​

In general, when applying a sepia tone look, you’ll still want to make some overall adjustments in the Basic panel, so that’s what I did here. I adjusted the Exposure, Contrast, Blacks, Clarity and Dehaze values.

basic-panel.jpg

Doing all this gave me a really nice looking final image that makes me feel like this guitarist is playing in some back alley blues club in Nashville. Check it out.

guitar-sepia-tone.jpg

I have to say, this is just so cool. I’m loving the way this image came out. As you can see, it’s not difficult at all to add a sepia tone to an otherwise black and white image in Adobe Lightroom and oftentimes, the sepia tone makes the photo come alive. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comments section down below. Thanks for reading!
 
Cameron

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Enhancing Color Photographs with Split Toning in Adobe Lightroom​

I’ve been thinking about the Split Toning panel in Adobe Lightroom and was wondering if I could make a color photo look as good as I made the black and white one look in my last post. I obviously don’t want to create any type of sepia toning on a colored photo, although I could if I converted it to black and white first. What I think I’m more interested in is simple enhancement. Basically, can I make the existing colors in the photo pop? Can I bring out the primary elements? Can I just make things look better? I suppose we’ll see.

In today’s post, I’m going to make a few adjustments to a color photo using the Split Toning panel in Adobe Lightroom. As you just saw in my previous post, working in this panel is very straightforward. There are only five sliders to choose from. Of course, I’ll likely want to make additional adjustments in the Basic panel as well, just to spice things up, but my main focus today is on the Split Toning itself.

Today’s Demo Image​

I wanted to find an image that already included some really great colors that were somewhat hidden. More simply put, I wanted to find a photo with potential. I think I did that.

jogger-sunset.jpg

Making the Split Toning Adjustments​

To save time, I think I’ll just go ahead and make all the adjustments in the Split Toning panel at once and then just show you a screenshot of those adjustments.

For the Highlights, I set the Hue value to 5 and the Saturation value to 60. For the Shadows, I set the Hue value to 185 and the Saturation value to 25. For the Balance, since I wanted more reds than blues to be included, I set the value to +15.

split-toning-color.jpg

I think I got a pretty decent result. I definitely woke up the colors.

color-adjustments.jpg

The thing is, the image still looks sort of dull. I’d like to add a bit of contrast to it. I’ll do that next.

Making Adjustments in the Basic Panel​

For the adjustments in the Basic panel, I set the Contrast to +20, Blacks to -30, Clarity to +20, Dehaze to +15 and Vibrance to +15. As you can see, I didn’t move many sliders, but the effect I got was exactly what I wanted. Darker darks.

basic-panel.jpg

And here’s the final image.

final-beautiful-sunset.jpg

Isn’t that much better?

I know this post was quick, but since I just wrote one that talked about the Split Toning panel in general, I felt that I could skip some material. I wanted to get to the meat of things. I guess the answer to my questions are yes, the Split Toning panel in Adobe Lightroom can really do a great job at enhancing a color photograph. It’s easier than I thought and the results were outstanding. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment area below. Thanks for reading!
 
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