Topic: To tone or not to tone....that is the question

[astrobeck]

I've been scanning some shots I made with a Diana clone, and have been experimenting with toning in PhotoShop.

I realize toning in the darkroom is the purists way to go, but until I get mine set up, I'm suffering through with scanning the neg and then attempting to get something richer looking.
Comments please, and don't be shy about it!

thanks,
astro

 

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[Francois]

The "toned" one looks much better.
I don't know if you plan on getting those printed on color paper or doing an inkjet print.
Last year I did some old family pictures on a Fuji Frontier machine and I had to crank up the sepia "toner" to over 50% in order to have a slightly warmtone print on matte paper. On the screen, my photos look overdone but on the prints, it's just OK.

You'll have to either profile your printer or do test strips as the results can be quite random. But on the screen, it looks good.

[lauraburlton]

tone- definately It's beautiful.

[astrobeck]

Thanks, I'm leaning toward the toned also.  The original just looks lifeless to me, so I'm hoping to get some warmth and more depth and character with toning.
Some of the toned photos I've seen done on this forum just had me salivating, so I figured I better belly up to the table, and give it a try.

This has given me new inspiration!

astro

[Francois]

The problem with the untoned versions is often that the contrast between black and white is too high. Toning it reduces contrast without making the image look weak.

[Karl]

Tone, in this instance. I've been going through the same processes as you recently. I've got everything to install in a darkroom but no dark room! In the meantime I'm stuck at the desk. Here are a couple of photoshop toned portratis of family friends kids out biking in Wales.

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[beck]

I like toning toning toning, too..har...but I'm not good at it. At the beginning, that's what I did with most of my toy work only to emulate the great Gordon Sttttettnnenaisitieitus, duotone, etc...but then, why would I want to do that any more when it looks like shit compared to actual darkroom prints....or those who have a knack with PS and toning pictures the right way. So I just leave them in grayscale now and say the heck with it. Tread's good at toning his buns....like this really great picture.



Sometimes I steal his images and convert them to b/w...don't tell him.

[Susan B.]

Another vote for tone.
Because this is a low contrast shot, the toning adds a bit of richness and contrast.
 

[outofcontxt]

No doubt about it. The toned version wins hands down.

[LT]

tone tone tone. 

[eddie]

I vote in favour of toning both digitally and in the darkroom.  Here is a sample of my digital tone.  I try to create something like a selenium tone.  Convert to colour, modify colour balance 36 cyan 18 magenta.

[db]

Some nice shots posted here..
I know you have your answer already, but I'd answer that question in the same way as I'd get up in the morning, look in the mirror and ask myself if I'll get dressed before going to work.

A  print is just naked without it..

[LT]

... and ask myself if I'll get dressed before going to work.

A  print is just naked without it..

superb quote!  I'm going to plagarise that as much as possible.

 

[Phil Bebbington]

I have been playing with toning in PS for a while and haven't been that happy with the results so I found someone whose toning I did like and asked them how they did it. They pointed me in the direction of http://www.theimagingfactory.com/ they produce a PS plugin called convert to black and Pro 3. It is downloadable and fully functional for 30 days from the web site. Here are some of the features from their website:
Features include:

Prefilter Color
Define any colorhue and intensity for prefiltering the image. The result can be seen interactively so subtle color differences can be judged easily.

Color Response
Define any color response by using the intuitive controls, which allow you to adjust the color sensitivity of the film at the 6 primary and secondary color areas. Defaults for several film types such as TRI-X and T-MAX are available.

Tonal Response
Powerful sliders to control the negative exposure, paper exposure, and paper contrast through an interactive multigrade value. (Based on Ilford's digital multigrade curves).

Sepia Tone
Select between two types of Sepia tone, pick any color through the photoshop colorpicker, and adjust the intensity using an interactive slider.