Unique looking photos with Split Toning in Lightroom

As photographers were always trying to create unique looking images and a great way to add some flavor to your photo is with color. You can enhance the mood of a photo by warming or cooling it and the color is what gives a retro looking photo its nostalgic feel. An easy way to add flavor to your photos in Lightroom is by adding color with the Split Toning panel in the Develop module. You can use this heavily adding lots of color or just a hint to nudge the feeling a bit. This can also be done in Adobe Camera Raw with the Split Toning tab.

Using the Split Toning panel when developing your photographs will allow you to add your own unique look by adding color to the highlights or shadows or both. Below is a photo with no color added and the Saturation sliders are set at 0.

 

An easy trick to warm up a photo is to add a bit of a golden hue to the highlights such as a Hue of 38 like the photo below. A critical part of this process is to also play with the Balance of the toning. This divides the color between the Highlights and Shadows and can be leaned heavier to one side or the other depending on the look you want to achieve.

 

If you want to add a retro looking color try using a green for your shadows like Hue 151 in the photo below.

Tip: Hold the Option key when sliding the Hue slider to temporarily see what the color will look like on your photo at 100% saturation.

 

Another unique look is to use a blue in your shadows like Hue 208. Notice I leaned the Balance more to the Shadow color in this one but not as much as the warming one.

 

As you can see, using the Split Toning feature in Lightroom is a quick, easy way to give your photos a unique look or to enhance the mood of your photographs. Try creating your own unique look with Split Toning in Lightroom.