Tip - Creating a Duotone Image in Photoshop - TipSquirrel

Yesterday, Richard Hales began an introduction to Black and White images. In conjunction with that, I wanted to present an oldie-but-goodie technique that you can use to spice up your black and white images – you can create a Duotone image. Duotones were originally created to allow the use of two inks (usually black and one other color) to be printed on an offset press as halftones (images made up of tiny dots, like you’d see in a newspaper or magazine). Having two colors instead of one adds a subtle richness to the image. Let’s see how we can do this in Photoshop. If we want to create a duotone image, we have to first start with a black and white image. More, specifically, we need a grayscale image, because only a grayscale image can be converted into duotone with Photoshop. So, use your favorite technique to create your black and white image, and then (using a copy, of course!) flatten the image. Here’s a quick example, starting with this color image:   Using a channel mixer adjustment layer, I create this black and white rendition (you can use any technique you like): Now, we have to prepare the image [...]