How can I create a red-and-gray selective color / duotone look?
Asked 5/6/2018
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I saw an image that looks almost limited to red/orange and gray tones. How is this effect usually created? Is it mainly done in-camera with lighting and white balance, or in post-processing? What techniques would help me recreate a similar look?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
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I can't imagine how one would achieve these colours?
There are two light sources, each with its own color. There's the very flat, cool, white light from the overcast, early morning or late afternoon sky. And then there's the very warm orange light coming from the doorway and windows. The color of that light is probably exaggerated by setting the white balance so that the blue-ish sky light look white, which makes warm (tungsten?) light seem even more orange.
Whatever the details, the key here is that there are two different colored light sources. You can get a similar two-toned effect with a pair of flashes gelled to different colors.
Originally by user4262. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4262
8y ago
0
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This look is usually a combination of lighting/color temperature differences and post-processing.
A common setup is two differently colored light sources in the scene, for example:
- cool ambient light from an overcast sky
- warm indoor/tungsten light from windows or a doorway
If you set white balance to make the cooler light look neutral, the warmer light will shift even more orange/red. That gives you the strong two-tone separation in-camera.
In post, the effect is often refined with selective color editing using an HSL (hue/saturation/luminance) or similar tool:
- reduce saturation of most colors to near zero
- keep or boost the red/orange channel
- optionally darken or deepen the kept color with luminance adjustments
This is often called selective color. You can also fake the lighting setup with two flashes gelled to different colors.
Important: post-processing works best when the original scene already contains distinct color differences. Editing alone can’t create strong color separation if the source image doesn’t have it.
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