Simulating a toned b&w print in Photoshop

[Ed Pierce]

Thanks folks for your replies to my question about scanning b&w negs, you've been very helpful.

I'm getting pretty good sharp images now, but I don't like the color of the greyscale image alone. I'd like to make them just a little purple to look like one of my selenium toned prints.

Any ideas? Thanks

[Ken Lee]

To do a decent job, it's better to use the duotone, tritone, or quadtone features of Photoshop.

For a quick example, explanation, and link to a "how-to" article, you can read this page (http://www.kenleegallery.com/bronze.htm" target="_blank)

[Bruce Watson]

There are of course many ways to accomplish this. And of course, it depends on what you want to do. You could do this with color inks for example. You can do it with the MIS variable tone quad-tone inks, for example. Or you could use a quad-tone inkset designed for just this purpose, which is what the Cone selenium tone Piezotone inkset if for. All have their good points and their bad points.

[JohnnyV]

With B+W image in RGB mode go to "Hue and Saturation" - use the Adjustment Layers so not to destroy image info. In the "Hue and Saturation" window check the "Colorize" button...play with the Hue and Saturation slides. A nice starting point is Hue: +31; Saturation 15

[domenico Foschi]

when i tone in photoshop i always use color balance , since it gives me the freedom to tone highlights , midtones , shadow areas, the way i see fit , instead of toning the all range .

[Carl Schofield]

If you want WYSIWG toned B&W printing I developed some standard icc profiles for soft-proofing use in B&W printing workflows. There are some sample profiles in the QTR Soft-proof folder on my filesharing site and a tutorial for use:
http://homepage.mac.com/scho/FileSharing2.html

[Henry Ambrose]

Johnny V's method is my favorite - any tone you want, very subtle variations and its quick! Domenico's split toning is good too if you want that effect with control, although you'll get some split almost no matter how you tone. I find its better in general when using Epson color inks to add a bit of tone to escape the ugly slightly green effect I get from a straight neutral file.