Why Can't I Tone My Blacks?

Dear Debbie,

I have always been a fan of Ansel Adams and I learned that he sometimes used selenium toner to get the cold blue-blacks in his images.  I have tried using Photoshop CS2 with some tone applied as your article in the November issue shows, but I can't seem to get the blue cast into solid black areas.  I use a Canon Pixma 5000 with 4 ink cartridges.  Is there a 3rd party black ink that might help, or some other solution?

Signed,
Black and Blue in Cold Spring, KY

***

Dear Black and Blue,

Thanks for your great question. If the solid black areas are just that—solid—you won't be able to add any tone to them. Sure, there are third party inks you can buy that have cool blacks or warm blacks, but if you're not ready to risk voiding your warranty or investing in a printer with built-in black-and-white toning (like the Epson 4800, for example), you can do it in Photoshop.

Since you can't tone solid black, the trick is to make the black slightly less solid before you add tone. To do this, go to Image > Adjust > Levels. Under Output Levels, change the number on the left to 3 (circled in my screenshot, below). Click OK, tone as usual, then print your results. You may find you need to make that output number higher (even up to 6 or 8) to get more blue into your dark blacks, but look out: Making the black too light could compromise your contrast.

Hope that helps, and good luck,
Debbie Grossman

Comments

[Marty in Mich.]

What process will give that Ansel Adams-like selenium tone from Photoshop CS2?

[joe]

like debbie said, if your blacks are too black, fuhgeddaboutit.

but, if not, i have a few amateur tricks for toning.

1) Mode > Duotone. open the quadtones folder box and look for "pantones" folder. apparently the adobe people brought in a master printer who gave them a bunch of tone templates that you can apply to your B&W images.

2) If a monochrome image, change the mode from grayscale to RGB color. then go into the color balance menu and give the shadows a color cast. if you want a cooler cast, move the slider to the blue side. adjust to taste.