toning | Daf random ramblings

Lacing Lilith Latex Couture + Colour Toning

Becky Burton wearing Lacing Lilith Latex

It’s been a long while since I’ve put something up on my main site but I’ve finally done it!

I had a shoot with with friends from Lacing Lilith Latex Couture over a year ago now! At the time they said they’d do the editing for their own site and so the set went to the back of my editing queue. But of late I’ve been managing to get through things and so came around to this set. Lacing lilith crew specifically asked me to do a fairly basic setup – with a plain light background which would allow them greater flexibility for edits – and so this also gave me such an opportunity.

Up to now my editing has been if not basic, certainly standard – possibly retouching on some images but on the whole correcting blemishes and lighting – no special or additional styling styling other than possibly turning an image to Black and White. Having seen many a fashion shoot styled with toning I fancied giving it a try.

There seems to be numerous ways to tone an image – some are basic and will usually only offer a single colour in one layer, while others can add multiple colouring options. Some possible options I found :

Fill Layer (Solid Colour): Basic, just adding a solid fill colour, however it’s possible to mask it or change the blend mode to affect one area.
Curves : Add a curve and adjust it differently only the individual channels – this allows different colour adjustment throughout the lights to darks.
Colour Balance : Add a colour balance layer – adjusting the colour by Highlights, Midtones or Shadows.

While Curves gave more control over which luminosity you’d change – a colour Balance layer seemed to give more control, or easier control over which colours you could choose – and so I mainly used this technique. Here’s an example of one of the adjustment layers I added:

As I’m new to this I won’t go into an in-depth tutorial and as everybody who tries a new technique I’m probably overdoing it, but c’est la vie.

These are the main steps I used to edit the photos:

Duplicate layer and do a general fix such as hairs, major blemishes, etc
Adjust eyes – brighten, whiten, enhance colour.
Skin, hair and eyes: Smooth skin + background (slightly), sharpen eyes and hair.
Lighten & darken some areas of the subject e.g. hair, clothes etc.
Darken the background
Colour/shade

And a selection: