Simulating Selenium Printing In Adobe PhotoShop
This Colour Image Was
‘Selenium’ Toned In Adobe PhotoShop
Sometimes a potentially good photograph is ruined because of an unsuitable background, or maybe the colours clash even though when you took your ‘snap’ you saw a very different picture.
Here’s where programs like Adobe PhotoShop are a boon. This picture of Amazon was taken yesterday. Her expression had a kind of penetrating beauty to it, almost as if it was posed, but believe me Amazon wasn’t posing for when she does she pulls the most appalling faces!
Unfortunately her stylish coat kindly sent by Grandma is electric blue, and not al all in keeping with the natural surroundings where the picture was taken. Moreover, although her expression is good, there was a lamp-post sprouting from the top of her head, before I removed it, and also blurred the background a little.
Perhaps I’ll write about how it’s possible to simulate a shallower depth of field in PhotoShop later this week? Today I want to draw attention to the tone of the final print. It’s not simply black and white but has a simulated selenium tone, which also was created via PhotoShop.
It’s very easy to achieve. Simply take your colour image and convert it to a gray scale image by discarding the colour information. Do this by going to Image-adjustments-gray scale. If necessary adjust your image for contrast and brightness, but don’t make the image too dark because the ‘selenium toning’ will darken the final result.
Once you’re satisfied using the Image-adjustments-duotone option, select duotone from the drop down menu that appears in the pop-up window. Black will be pre selected as the first colour, all you need to do is to select the second colour that will be output from the printer. Click on ink 2 and you’ll bring up a dialogue box with lots of options. Navigate to Pantone 7518 C and select it.
‘Voila’, or should I cry ‘Bak’ since I’m in Turkey? Your picture suddenly has extra depth and a stylish tonal quality!
March 1st, 2006 at 12:12 pm
[...] I could have made the final image lighter, but chose to use a duotone effect to add a little warmth to the picture. This has produced slightly muted lighting which to an untrained eye might resemble an available light picture. [...]
October 30th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Adobe Photoshop is the best photo editing tool in my opinion.Photoshop has been my bread and butter software on my current job which involves a lot of photo editing.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:58 am
Julie,
It’s good to detox, and I agree that although there are other good photo editors Adobe Photoshop remains my favourite too
March 21st, 2012 at 6:36 pm
A better way to do this is to use Photoshop’s Photo Filter setting under Image/Adjustments/Photo Filter. You can create a custom photo filter from the Pantone family
Doing it this way preserves the luminosity of the photograph instead of uniformly darkening it. It is a much closer simulation of actual selenium toning in a darkroom.
March 27th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Good call Doug