Photoshop Tutorial: Changing the Color Tone of Your Photos
Changing Your Photos to Black and White
Changing your photos to black and white in Photoshop is one of the simplest and most creative ways to enhance your photos if you’re a beginner.
Step 1) Open up your canvas in Photoshop with the picture you want to work on. Next, go to Image on the top horizontal menu bar, then to Adjustments, then finally Desaturate. This will make your photo black and white, it may lack proper contrast, so it has more grays than crisp black and whites (like a black and white photo should have).
Step 2) Next, go to Image again, then Adjustments, and finally Auto Contrast. If using Auto Contrast doesn’t make the picture look right, go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness and Contrast. Scroll through these bars until you get the right contrast for your photo.
And it’s as simple as that!
Coloring and Toning Your Pictures
Toning is adding one color variation to your photo. For my example, I used a blue tone.
Step 1) Open up your canvas with the photo you want to tone. Next go to Image (on the top horizontal menu), then Adjustments, then Hue and Saturation. For my picture, I put the saturation level down to -50. This took some of the color out of the picture, but not all of it. Since every picture is different, you may have to adjust yours differently to a negative number. Click OK when you’re done adjusting that.
Step 2) Go to back to Image>Adjustments> then Variations (on the very bottom of the menu). This will give you a preview of the different tones you can add and how it will look on your picture. If you click one of the boxes, it will add that tone to your picture (see Current Pick preview box). Once you click it, the colored preview boxes will show you what the picture will look like if you click the box again. On the Fine and Coarse bar at the top, you can choose how much color will be added to the picture at once time. If you want the color added to the picture slightly, move it more towards Fine. Once the Current Pick preview is what you want it to be, click OK.
Then you’re done!
Hint: You don’t have to keep clicking the same color. You can combine different colors to create your own tone! On the the three side previews on the right-hand side, you can also adjust the lightness and darkness of the picture as well. This is one of the amazing things you can do in Photoshop if you’re a beginner!
