The most asked question after releasing our behind the scenes video of the “Fashion Breakdown” editorial was about color toning. It’s quite interesting, how post production topics always seem to be the biggest mystery. Fortunately, it’s the easiest part of an editorial production, so here’s the complete color toning process in detail. Please also check out the overview of our post production workflow.
As always, don’t hesitate to comment if you have any further questions.
We start the toning with the fully retouched picture.
retouched picture without toning
The first step is to add two adjustment layers above the image layer, one for reducing the saturation (hue/saturation) and one for the coloring (curves).
In the saturation layer, we reduce the color saturation by -23. This is because the overall saturation will increase during the following color adjustments.
after reducing the saturation
Now we’re ready to tune the colors with the curves adjustment layer. We want a slight yellow shift in the light tones, so we go to the blue channel and move down the handle at the upper right corner. As we don’t want to adjust the darker tones, we add a control point about one third from the left side.
after adding a slight yellow shift in the light tones
Next, we warm the overall picture by adding more red, the light tones a bit more than the darker tones.
after adding more red
The last step in colour adjusting is to add some magenta to the darker tones.
after adding magenta to the darker tones
Now, this was only to illustrate the basic concept. In the real world, you would start over by fine tuning the blue, red and green channel as long as the final look has been found.
Because of the desired retro style and to give more attention to the model, we added a vignette which darkens the sides of the picture but not the center. You can use the gradient tool for this on an empty layer with the target colours 50% gray and black. Don’t forget to set this layer to the “softlight” blend mode.
after adding a vignette
The last step is to final correct the tones with a levels adjustment layer set to the blend mode “luminance”. The picture got a little bit too dark with the previous steps, so we add some brightness to the mid tones.
final picture
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[...] Marie-Louise Cadosch Shoots Fashion In A Bus Sunday, November 21, 2010 Posted in Editorial, Fashion, Location, Portraits, Strobe light TweetShareHere is an interesting photoshoot where Marie-Louise Cadosch lights her model inside an old bus. Instead of trying to fit the lights inside, they decide to light through the glass and the results speak for themselves. Check out the final images and more info from this Fashion Breakdown shoot here and more on the toning of these images here. [...]
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