Black and white photography tip: adding a colour tint

Thursday 14 December 2023, 20:02 by Nando Harmsen | 2,787 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Sometimes you still want a little colour in your black and white photo. It does not have to be much, just a hint is enough. It is easy to add a colour tint in Lightroom. This gives your photo a unique look. It is important to have a good black and white photo as a base.

You know them, those sepia photos from the past. This yellow tint gives the photo an old-fashioned look, as if time has left its mark. But it does not stop there. You can give a black and white photo all kinds of colour tints.

Choose yellow, red, blue or green. It does not matter, as long as you make it your own unique style. The basis must be a well-edited black and white photo, though. Before you start using colour, you first need to remove it.

Once you have edited a beautiful black and white photo, with fine and pleasing contrast, it is time to add colours. In Lightroom, you can do this with the Colour Grading editing panel.

Colour Grading gives you all the freedom you need to choose the colours for your black and white photo.
You can choose a global colour, or adjust the colour intensity separately for the midtones, shadows and highlights. This gives you complete control over the strength of the colours in the different brightness levels of the photo.

If you like, you can even use two colours. One for the shadows and one for the highlights. You then get a duotone photo. In that case, complementary colours are recommended. But you do not have to use them if you do not want to.

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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2 comments

Haegeman Roland wrote on Tuesday 19 December 2023 at 12:49 | reply
Seems very interesting to me.
Translated from Dutch.

Ynze Braaksma wrote on Wednesday 20 December 2023 at 00:21 | reply
Nice tip! I knew it existed but had never worked with it before. I’ve now applied it to a suitable photo. It turned out nice.
Translated from Dutch.

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