Duotone Effect with a Gradient Map
This tip shows how a Gradient Map adjustment layer turns a greyscale photo into a coloured duotone or tritone in Adobe Photoshop. It is fast, fully editable, and gives you a different look every time you change the gradient.
Step 1: Prepare the tones
Add a Levels adjustment layer and lighten the mid-tones a little while keeping the shadows and highlights where they are. The gradient map works on brightness, so balanced tones give a cleaner result.
Step 2: Add the Gradient Map
Add a Gradient Map adjustment layer (not Gradient). It starts as black to white, which changes nothing. The left end of the gradient colours the darkest areas of the image and the right end colours the lightest. Double-click the gradient to edit it.
Step 3: Assign colours
- Click the right stop and choose a colour for the highlights, for example yellow.
- Click below the gradient to add a stop in the middle and set it to a mid-tone colour such as red.
- Click the left stop and choose a dark colour, such as purple, for the shadows.
Add more stops if you want extra colour bands. The rule of thumb from the video: lighter colours for the light areas, darker colours for the shadows, or the image will look flat.
Step 4: Try presets and finish
The gradient presets change the whole mood of the photo in one click, so try a few and darken them if needed. For the final look in the video, the original image layer was converted to a Smart Object and given Filter > Camera Raw Filter with some grain, which shows nicely in the highlights.
Links from the video
- Join the members-only content: https://bit.ly/3fEEvD4
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- Premium tutorials on Udemy: http://bit.ly/2Cqmcgo
- Download the colour swatches: https://bit.ly/3us3sYg
