Recolor Picture Frames using Duotones

Ok, now that you know how to recolor the frames using a color-fill, here's how you can do it using Duotones. This is my old-school method of doing it. ;-) It also allows you to control the tones of the frame alot more (I think).

Open your frame file. Change your image to Grayscale (Image>Mode>Grayscale)

 

Then change your image mode to "Duotone" (Image>Mode>Duotone) 

A Duotone dialog box will come up and you'll want to change your "Type" to "Duotone" (the default is Monotone) 

Now you choose your 2 colors that you want to use in your Duotone. Choose your "Ink 1" and "Ink 2" by clicking on the solid colored boxes as seen below. My colors were already selected when I took this screenshot, so the red is my "Ink 1" and the pink is my "Ink 2".

 

When you click on the solid colored boxes (they might be white by default, i'm not sure), the "Color Picker" dialog box will pop up. Scroll through that rainbow colored area to find the general color hue you want, then click in the left gradiated box to choose your final color. Hit "OK". Do this for each of your "Ink 1" and "Ink 2".

 

So as I said, i already chose red and pink as my 2 colors. Make sure that your "Preview" box is selected in your "Duotone Options window so you can preview your image as you select your colors and also when you play around with the color curves, which we're going to do now.

Click on the box to the left of each solid color box for each "Ink" color. (the box has a diagonal line going through it.) See where arrow/cursor is below:

 

Clicking on it will bring up your "Duotone Curve" box:

 

Click and hold your arrow along the diagonal line and move the line around, watching your picture-frame image to your left to get your desired affect. Do this with each "Ink 1" and "Ink 2" color. If you look at my little "Curve" boxes above in the "Duotone Options" window, that is how my curves looked to get this particular affect. You can play until you achieve your own desired final look.

 

With duotones you're essentially "mixing" your 2 chosen duotone colors to create different looks with your image. I like this method because you can control the darks and lights of your image more closely.

I applied this same method to the picture-frame in this scrapbook page. It's a soft look. I love it! You'll also noticed the yarn flowers, which will be available in a kit that I'm releasing tomorrow! Stay tuned.

Comments

[inspired2scrap]

Thanks for the great tutorial, have been wanting to know how to do this for ages, yay now I can play!!

[reinsen]

Hi, I will show my daughter, she likes to play with that stuff and those colors on the computer. Then I get her off the street.