All my life, I have been photographing in colour, often using black, orange, reds and yellows. I guess I enjoy the drama of colours against a dark background.
However, for a while now, I have been developing a greater appreciation of monochrome, not necessarily black and white, but warm tones such as sepia, reminiscent of the pictorialist style. I've discovered that the range and contrasts in tonality open a whole new way of looking at things. However, I do like colour and would never be able to completely eliminate it from my work. What I like even more is the idea that I can introduce colour in a monochrome piece by selecting a specific area of the image I wish to highlight in its original colour. This adds the necessary punch or splash of colour to a warm toned image and draws the eye immediately to that area of the photo.
I explored various applications such as Snapseed and Tonality which provided some degree of success with warm tone filters and selective colouring.
However, the best way I have found to do this to my personal liking is with Photoshop, by adding B&W (with a warm tone profile) and Selective Colour adjustment layers to the original colour photograph.
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| Colour photo in Photoshop with B&W and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers |
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| Various filters in Tonality |
