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Photography
Use Adobe Photoshop to create a duotone effect.
Whether it’s your favourite band’s avatar or your best friend’s new profile pic, the duotone effect is everywhere. Thankfully, it doesn’t take a full studio to create—all you need is your creativity. Learn how graphic artist Erica Larson uses Adobe Photoshop to add colour gradients to her images, creating a duotone look.
Take a peek at the Photoshop technique behind this duotone effect in our one-minute video; the steps are written out below.
Before you start.
The duotone effect works best on high-contrast images. Use this sample image if you’d like or practice with your own.
Step 1: Prep your image
Larson started by adding a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer (different from a regular Gradient). This allows her to map colours onto the grayscale values, while preserving the original image.
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Step 2: Add a splash of colour
Click different Presets in the Properties panel to see how each one affects your image. Larson selected the Violet, Orange gradient as her starting point.
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Step 3: Choose your shade
Click the gradient to open the Gradient Editor. This preset has two colour stops by default. Larson double-clicked each of the colour stops and then chose a new colour using the Colour Picker.
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Step 4: Enhance the spectrum
You can shift the colour stops and the Colour Midpoint (the centre diamond) to add a bit more range to your image’s colour spectrum. Larson went further, adding two more colour stops by simply clicking just below the gradient and again selecting from the Colour Picker.
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Create your dynamic duotone.
See how this dramatic, colourful effect can give any high-contrast, black-and-white image a bold new look.
Note: Project files included with this tutorial are for practice purposes only.