Quick Duotones

[jbruceb]

If Richard could find the time, there are 9 beautiful Duotone actions free on the following site:http://epaperpress.com/psphoto/index.html.

[Leah]

It's odd that he's created actions to do duotoning in Photoshop when Photoshop has a Duotone mode (including tritone and quadtone) that you can save and load presets for and that comes with a pretty darn good initial bunch of presets for traditional darkroom processes.

Pending Richard's getting clever with those actions, you might want to check out this thread and the associated tutorial - if, as I think, Richard's HPPE tool enable you to create layer masks then you should be able to apply the techniques in Elements while you wait for your actions.

[Richard_Lynch]

Guess I must be missing the point, cause I don't see any actions at that link. All I am finding are ads for other books. Seems a slight suspicious to me.

But just to fill in...one: I have means of making duotones in the book--aren't they good enough, or didn't yu see them? Try the Separations tab and page 120-129. two: why use a pre-fab action when you can create a duotone to match your interests and the image? chances are a prefab action lacks good artistic judegement; none of my actions claim artistic judgement, they are functions. three: just what are the duotone actions supposed to accomplish? Do you have a better link?

[jbruceb]

Duotones

Thanks Leah and Richard for the replies.
Leah- I couldn't follow the Roger Ele tutorial since I don't know how to make it work in PE2. Richard's method is fine, but I was looking for something automatic.

Richard- the link should take you to "Photoshop for Photographers", where you click on Black & White on the list on the left, and then on Classic Tones. Sorry I left that out. These tones are based on curves so this should be duck soup for you.

[Susan S.]

If Richard's looking on a Mac (and hasn't updated to 10.3.5 yet) then he probably can't see the links on the lhs of the eapaperpress website! Last time I checked I couldn't navigate this website either, but it seems the recent Mac updates have fixed the problem, at least for me. It's an interesting website but until recently has been next to impossible for OSX users to navigate!

The actions just contain curve presets that adjust the separate R,G, B channels to give the particular toning on a previously desaturated image. The action I tried (palladium) works on Elements as is with just the names changed to remove capital letters and non-alphanumeric characters. Thomas would need to give permission for the fiddling on his copyright material to be done before I'd pass them on. You could do exactly this with a gradient map (my preferred way of duotoning) but you'd need to trial and error to get the same result - I prefer to do that as particular images seem to suit particular tonings.

[Leah]

bruce -- I was thinking more of the discussion in the thread on how to reproduce Roger's technique in PaintShop Pro, which it struck me could be extended to PSE if the HPPE stuff allows for layer masks.

[Richard_Lynch]

A few clarifications...

Susan,
I am one that likes the public betas to wear themselves out when it comes to operating systems, so I often remain as many behind as I can ;-). I am on 10.2.8, and I do see the navbar. I would just expect that the URL would bring you to the right page. regretfully this must be set up poorly in the php, as when you change the URL it doesn't change on the URL bar. i have been using Safari, which I quite like!

Jbruce,
Even if these RGB actions are fast, I wouldn't use them. Susan's suggestion for Gradient Map or the one in the book for Hue/Saturation would be where I would turn--if I wanted fast. RGB adjustment makes it more complicated without providing a distinct advantage--or means of adjustment. Unless you are making true separations as I go through in the book, you still are not controlling separate inks and if not you are not making the best color choices. With the other methods (all of them) you are just making a midtone color change. In Susan's suggestion you would open the Gradient Map and add a midtone color stop.

Leah,
The free tools have Layer Masks (http://hiddenelements.com/freetools.html) and I have another method (methods) of masking in the book. I prefer the latter.

Good to see some activity on this list in the past week or so!

[jbruceb]

Duotones

Thanks everybody for your responses. I guess the answer is no. This is the third or fourth action I have requested without success, so I am going to quit while I'm ahead, and just buy the plug-ins if they appear commercially. Unlike many of you, I don't have the time or patience to experiment with masks or gradients or whatever; I want to apply the Duotone in 30 SECONDS and get on with it. I am not interested in infinitesimal microcontrol of every effect since 6 months later looking at the print I can't remember what I did anyway; just whether I like it or not.
Bon Voyage!

[Susan S.]

Bruce - while I understand your frustration, the problem is, at least from my point of view, that to modify the actions to run in Elements I need the permission of the original author, even for such simple changes as renaming them, as otherwise I am breaching the original writer's copyright - the actions as renamed will run in Elements, I have already tested them. If you have a demo of PS you could do this yourself, it only took five minutes (much of which was spent remembering which html file to modify as I haven't used Elements for a while!). I am happy (well that's putting it strongly - willing is more accurate, as it's not an action that I'm likely to use myself, and I don't have mass distribution facilities) to modify actions to run in Elements within reason as long as permission is given. But I ain't going to do the running around to get permission or do large scale distributions!

[jbruceb]

Duotones

Thanks Susan. I really didn't intend for anyone other than Richard to convert these as he is in an authentic position as an author to get the required permission. I was hoping that others would agree as to the desireability of these actions and thus convince Richard that it was worthwhile. However, I failed to attract any support.
BTW, demo copies of Photoshop (any version) are almost impossible to come by.

[WendyW]

It may be worth you checking out one of the old newsletters ...

http://www.hiddenelements.com/files/HPvol8.txt

I think this one has the information you are looking for .... it is quite near the end.


Wendy

[jbruceb]

PS6 Demo

Thanks Wendy, but the available demo download is not suitable for Windows XP, and I don't want to take any chances. Even if I were successful installing it, there is a learning process involved using its actions and then converting for elements. Also, I wonder how it could help, since you can't save with the demo version.

[WendyW]

The Photoshop 6 demo version will not save images BUT it does save actions ...


Wendy

[Richard_Lynch]

The effort to change the actions requires getting permissions and possibly some time in adjustment. What you want to accomplish can be accomplished with the Hue/Saturation tool for reasons I explain.

While I am interested in creating new functionality, I am not interested in redoing what I have already included just because it is implemented in a different way. You can accomplish what you want in 30 seconds OR LESS with Hue/Saturation...Whereas creating an addition to my tools and installer could take hours (including testing, packaging, getting permissions, ec.). You say your time is valuable and I agree. I hope there is some value in my own as well...

Hidden Power isn't generally about 60 second effects. It may more-or-less be about "infinitesimal microcontrol" ;-) of your images and getting the best results. I don't want to encourage people to get OK results when they can get much better ones. Hope that makes sense.