Elbow Falls – Metallic Duotone Collection
Following on from the color images of Elbow Falls here are a set of duotone images from the same evening up on the river.
I created the metallic effect using Lightroom’s Split Toning feature. Using gold for highlights and navy blue shadows gives a look that works really well with water.
This is a hard place to leave.
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The Spring Storms Come
Now spring seems to have asserted control and with that comes the storm clouds that roll out of the mountains through the summer. Here then are a couple of image from the start of the storm season from this afternoon.
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Storm through the Bow Valley
Following a very pretty sunrise and a great walk with an elk, this storm started to build as it moved through the Bow Valley corridor in the Banff National Park. This great chunk of rock is Mount Rundle which looms above the towns of Banff and Canmore. It is a favourite subject for hikers and artists. I am certainly not immune to its siren call – I really enjoy photographing this mountain – year round it always presents an interesting face and is usually reaching into the clouds to create dynamic compositions.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Metallic Moose?
It could be a Canadian rock band but here I am talking about a duotone process for creating black and white images of a moose I photographed yesterday.
Lately I have been experimenting with using the split toning controls to replace my black and white conversion workflow. The slightly metallic look appeals to me and I like the dimensionality that I can create using this technique. I have applied this technique to people and landscapes and wanted to try it on a wildlife subject. This moose looked great among the warm fall colors so it was fun to take that starting point and try to create a different feel to the images.
The specific process I follow starts in Adobe Lightroom’s Develop module but is applicable to Photoshop or any other editing program where you can set the colors. First I zero out the import settings so that I am starting with the unaltered RAW file and then I build the image following these are the steps to create this look.
Split Tone Color:
I like to set my highlight color to a shade between gold and silver (in LR I adjust the hue and saturation to get the tone I like). For the shadows, I set the color to some shade between blue and grey.
Tone Curve:
I apply an S curve and then tweak it to find the balance of shadow and highlight that works for me on that image.
Basic Adjustments:
Next, I adjust the Blacks, Fill, Clarity and Exposure to find the final look that I am looking for.
Detail Adjustments:
To finish I, like many, apply any noise reduction and sharpening that I feel adds to the image. I don’t use either very much but here with the fine detail in the moose’s coat, I found raising the sharpening amount and detail added to my enjoyment of the images.
Usually I have a pretty good idea of what I want the image to look like with this technique but a change to the tone colors or the mix of settings can make a surprising change to the feel of the image.
Christopher Martin Photography 