How To: Shooting in Earth Tones

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Guy Tal

Red Castle Peak, Uinta Mountains, UT

A red filter preset in Adobe Photoshop CS3 darkened the sky, and extra saturation given to blues in Hue/ Saturation darkened it still more. Tripod-mounted Canon EOS 5D with 17–40mm f/4L Canon EF lens. Exposure, 1/6 sec at f/22. ISO 100. Tinted with Pantone Warm Gray 7C.

DIGITAL TONING AND TINTING

The term “black-and-white” can be misleading. Photographers have long employed a variety of techniques to add tints and color tones to monochromatic images.

In the traditional darkroom, these are done with chemicals such as platinum, selenium, or sepia toner. With digital, toning can be applied visually before the final print is made. Moreover, you’re not restricted to the effects of specific chemicals but free to use tones of any color and intensity.

If you use Photoshop CS3, you can apply the built-in presets for Sepia or Cyanotype, found under Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. For more creative toning effects, you can add a Black & White adjustment layer and check the Tint box in the properties panel. Clicking on the tint color swatch opens a color picker dialog where you can adjust the tint color to your heart’s content.

You can take it a step further and click on Color Libraries, which allows you to select from a wide array of Pantone swatches. This lets you note the exact Pantone code used, should you wish to apply the same effect to other images.

More options for toning and black-and-white effects can be found in imaging software and plug-ins such as Nik Color Efex Pro, Alien Skin Exposure, Power Retouche, and others.

When people talk about “fine-art photography,” they usually mean that recording subjects and scenes takes a backseat to aesthetics and personal interpretation.

Black-and-white is perfect for this. You’re free to render almost any subject in almost any shade without regard to color accuracy, and to exploit graphic elements such as tone, lines, textures, and details. You can imbue an image with a mood of your own choosing, free from the emotional associations some colors carry. And, for many of us, there is an undeniable romantic appeal to monochrome images.

While digital offers much of the same capabilities as traditional b&w film photography, it allows more precise control. Here are some steps to creating your own fine-art monochromes.

Step 1: VISUALIZE TONES

Ansel Adams described visualization as seeing in your mind’s eye the finished image before actually making an exposure. A useful skill for any photographer, it becomes all the more critical in black-and-white. Your final image will be rendered in tones, or degrees of brightness, rather than in individual colors. This means different colors (say, red flowers and green leaves) may appear the exact same shade of gray when transformed into b&w.

To successfully visualize in monochrome, ignore color and pay attention only to differences in brightness. With some practice you’ll be able to tell how different elements in your composition will appear relative to each other.

Tonal differences are referred to in terms of separation and contrast. If one element is significantly brighter or darker than another, contrast is high, and the elements will be well separated when rendered in b&w. Where contrast is low and elements have similar tones, they will tend to mesh together and not separate very well.

Step 2: UNDERSTAND FILTERS

Color can still be put to good use in b&w by using color filters. These allow light only of their own hue to pass through, blocking others. Opposites on the color wheel will show the strongest separation: A red filter will block most of the green and blue ranges, and can thus produce a striking separation between a red flower and green leaves. A red filter can also render a blue sky almost completely black, making clouds stand out boldly. And a green filter makes foliage appear bright, helping to separate leaves from dark branches and trunks.

Photographers used to have to carry color filters with them and decide on the spot when to use them. If you’re shooting digital, though, you can create the same effects with software such as Adobe Photoshop. You can apply any amount of filtration, and also blend the effects of multiple filters. And you can see the results in real time on a large colorcalibrated monitor before deciding on the right look.

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