Giclée Print Toning the Easy Way

There are two routes you can go when shooting black and white. You can use the monochrome mode of your camera and take what you get, or you can shoot in color and use the color information to optimize your image during processing. Either way, you wind up with neutral grayscale image. You can then convert this image to grayscale mode, or keep it RGB.

If you keep it in RGB mode, you can add a Hue/Saturation layer to give it a slight tint, known traditionally as print toning. This is possible because the RGB image has the capability of storing color information while the Grayscale image does not. But if you have Adobe Camera Raw, you don't need to keep your images in RGB mode to do this. You can use the Split Toning adjustment instead to apply color to a grayscale image.

This technique works best when your color printer is profiled to produce consistently neutral prints.

You can even create presets to simulate different types of toning and apply it consistently. Here are some numbers to get you started:

• Copper Toning — Hue 25, Saturation 19
• Gold+Sepia Toning — Hue 15, Saturation 20
• Iron Toning — Hue 198, Saturation 11
• Selenium Toning (diluted) — Hue 19, Saturation 7
• Selenium Toning (strong) — Hue 0, Saturation 6
• Sepia Toning — Hue 50, Saturation 15

Start by setting the values the same for both the highlights and shadows. You can then adjust the saturation level of either, and the balance between the two. For example, you might desaturate the lighter tones while keeping the darker tones the same to achieve a three-color or “tritone” effect.

These same Hue/Saturation value pairs can be applied in Photoshop using the Hue/Saturation adjustment panel, where they will be applied to the full tonal range at once.

For museum-quality black and white prints, a dedicated monochrome printer is the best choice. Many new printers have advanced monochrome capabilities, and some even have the ability to adjust print temperature through the use of a “cooling” ink which neutralizes the otherwise warm gray and black inks.

It’s also possible to convert a color printer for monochrome printing with a special monochrome replacement ink set which uses several shades of gray plus black to achieve finer tonal control.