Creating a professional duotone

I know how to crreate duotones in Photoshop, but I don't know what values I should use. Is there an industry standard for creating duotones or is it all to personal taste?

The end result I want is a sepia-tone image, but this is going to press so I can't use Photoshop's little "Sepia action." I could use that action if I wanted to go 4 color process, but budget won't allow for that.

Thanks for the help

It´s personal taste. There is no 'standard'.

You can load a duotone preset form the Duotone preset folder if you like..

Mathias

Mathias is right, but there are several good duo/tri/quadratones included with Photoshop that might be considered "professional".

Rene,

I could use that action if I wanted to go 4 color process, but budget won't allow for that.

If you have much two-ink work to do, you might want to consider Creo's Powertone plug-in for Photoshop. It gets the most out of two colors and can almost look like CMYK and yet use only two inks.

< http://www.creo.com/global/products/software_solutions/creat ive/powertone/default.htm>

For a screenshot of the PowerTone user interface, see:

< http://www.creo.com/global/products/software_solutions/creat ive/powertone/powertone_screenshots>

For a gallery of various two-ink combinations, explore the various two-color combinations at:

< http://www.creo.com/global/products/software_solutions/creat ive/powertone/powertone_gallery>

There may be Photoshop techniques to achieve the same effect, but Powertone makes it easy. At one time there was word that a Powertone 2.0 was in development to offer the additional option of producing optimal separations for any three inks, but apparently that project never came to fruition. But for two inks, Powertone 1.5 could really improve your prints.

-- Burton -- (not associated with Creo or PowerTone)

Rene,

See: http://www.cdds.co.uk/adobe/sepia.pdf

Burton,

Interesting plug-in. Never heard about it. Thanks for the heads up!

Mathias

Burton,

Thanks for posting about the powertone plug-in. That would help me out because I do a lot of two color work. Although some of those samples look like really bad 4 color process, some look pretty sweet.

Rene

P.S. Thanks for all of your help

Rene,

Although some of those samples look like really bad 4 color process, some look pretty sweet.

Those samples are just a few simple 2-ink combinations. I think Powertone 1.5 lets you work with a pair of any two Pantone inks, which gives you an enormous number of choices. You can continue to experiment in Powertone until you find an ink combination that works well for your project. Creo has a downloadable demo that lets you do two free separations.

-- Burton --

I dl´d Powertone, and I must say it is quite convincing. Here´s my test image, red and blue: <http://www.96ppi.net/temp/powertone.jpg>

I used the standard blue and red, and then adjusted the two channels with Curves in Photoshop to get this result..

Quite nice for a first try. Now for my second freebee :-)

Mat

Mat,

Wow! I am impressed. Blue on top of orange does make a pretty good dark. I would say that is quite nice for a first try. Good subject, too.

-- Burton --

She´s a beauty, isn´t she? <http://www.96ppi.net/temp/miriam2_1.jpg> Damn, if I only didn´t have age scrouples..

Agreed.

Nice tones, Mathias!