I’m on a mission to change that and I want my first video of the year to do that. Most photographers don’t realize that photographic tone is the secret skill that makes them understand every shot. Today we learn it…
This video would have saved me years if I had known.
But videos like this did not exist when I was starting out. These are the 3 keys of tone in photography so you can master them fast regardless of your experience level. And they will change how you create photos.
The unabashed flaring of the sun gives a natural haze to this morning street that can’t be done with a single slider. It was processed gold using GoldChrome
The stuff that great photos are made of.
The photographic tone is the foundation of great photos. But the tone is a wide-ranging one that comes from the painters and the way they learned to understand shadow and contrast long before cameras.
This is the lost skill in Photography that I go on deeper in my workshops and today I’m sharing the keys to unlock this door in the simplest way I know how. IN consists of 3 elements that lead us to what tone does for us and why it is important.
Here’s how I explain photographic tone. But it’s more important to show!
Shadows create contrast
Contrast reveals tone
Tone creates atmosphere
These 1,2,3 lists mean little to your photographic tone without context. So in the video, we’re comparing different photos to see how not only edits but how shadow contrast and ambiance in each will define our result.
IN another Xpan style crop we see light creating bloom and reducing contrast. The net result is that tone is more subtle and more contrast is created in the overall image. Edited with Street’ist.
Most photographers don’t even know what it is
In my Exposed Master class, we learn everything about exposure and zones. Those are the technical aspects. But if you’ve been to Shadow Hackers or seen the Photo Perfect workshop you know that combining those with the artist’s aesthetic is what makes a great photo.
In the end, the tone is pretty simple and yet subjective. But if you constantly remind yourself of the three factors. Shadow, contrast, and tone, which is the combination of all the light and dark and mist and color. All of them combined create a tone in your own style.
We see the contrast between the burned tree and the tone of the model. Then edited with a David Hamilton-inspired process to create softness with contrast and a balanced photographic tone.
Less contrast is often more contrasty!
As much as I use sliders and settings and layers inside and out in my tool packs. Tone-like shadow is not created by the slider it’s just moved around.
When we use contrast to just create hard lines we lose tonal nuance and atmosphere. In the end, the contrast of the overall scenes is less, and viewers don’t see the nuance you wanted to show.
As I keep building these free resources and simplifying the process of understanding tone I help myself learn more and hopefully, you as I realize a dream that’s spanned 20 years to make a simple process for those of us who want to truly master our style in photography.
We compare two of these in the video. Note how the tone of this one is softened but less distracting than what might be called the contrast image. Edited with Filmist.
Presets, photo editing software, and gear. We have the tools in 2022. But I want to change how you think about your photos.
I’ve been a photographer for over 20 years. I watched digital be born and the entire industry change. I’ve run the gamut in everything from street and wedding photography to fashion photography of Models in Mexico and fashion photography.
I saw photography go from a technical creative art to something mostly driven by internet marketers and “Ai” tools. But I always see the same mistakes that make photos ordinary no matter how good the software gets.
I don’t need to second guess. People either like my photon or not. A clean Natural HDR 4 process made it look good and that’s a wrap.
Sometimes digital is so easy, that we lose an opportunity. Trends come and go, but in the end, photography will always be about emotion, inspiration, and creativity. If you learn to discover shadows and souls with confidence, your photography will always get better regardless of the tools you use.
Confidence is not always easy. I’ve learned a lot as a street photographer. You can have all the software. You have the best camera, and download the best Lightroom presets (yes I have those for you) But what you need is to see as no one else sees. That’s what I want to show you today.
You’ll find the presets I use here on the site – They do matter because they make completing your vision easier. You can get my free lightroom presets and film styles like Filmist and Natural HDR.
Most photographers edit wrong, but not for the reasons they think!
In this video, we’re going head to head with the mistake that nearly every photographer has made, and may are doing every day. If you can get past this, it changes more than just how you edit. It’s going to change your photography mentality.
As I showed in the video. The perfect capture and the perfect edit are a myth. That’s what makes photography so amazing. There’s always something we can improve that will affect the emotion of your photo, or the lack of it.
Knowing how to edit, starts with knowing what you want. Presets and styles are invaluable because they help me find my look without wasting brain cells.
Black and white, color, contrasty, soft. Deciding does not have to be hard. here I used Filmist and Elegance 4 to give more depth and that’s it. You can get my free lightroom presets and film styles on the FIlmist page.
I usually start with Filmist because it works so well. But there’s something more important than what you edit with! That’s knowing what you want to create with your edit. An actual vision.
Ansel Adams taught this way back with visualization techniques and using Zones in our exposures. Something we studied at length in my Exposed Master Class and in Photo Perfect.
IN the end making the craft of your photography second nature, finding your confidence, even if you know it won’t be perfect. That is what will transform your photography. The tools you use just, are just things to help you get there.
I’ll explain it all in detail in the video. You can also watch it directly on my photography channel here
Enjoy and we’ll see you next time – Gavin Seim
I like capturing things people don’t even think about like the corner drug store because in 20 years everything will change and then simple photos like this will matter. But here it was easy, this was all about shadows and sunset. Using Silver 4 and Blackroom was a no-brainer.The full gold chrome look that I talked about in this blog post. Decide your look hand and commit to it. It will change your perfective on every image you publish.
There’s a story here. But the real gold nugget is how to use GOLD tones with color photos. Here’s what I’ve learned…
My grandpa was always buying and selling antiques and taught me when I was young how to separate the value from the junk. At least he tried to teach me.
I remember him talking about the Curtis gold-tone prints long before digital was a thing. Little did I know that 3o years later I would still be obsessed with gold tones in the back of my mind as I developed my recipes. Maybe because they are so hard to get just right.
But today we’re in color, not re-creating early-era gold tones. Enter the Gold-Chrome.
As far as I know, there was never a Gold-Chrome film. But maybe there should have been. Now even if you’re wanting to create other tones and mixes, the tips I’m going to share today will work.
Once we know the settings we create, but sometimes we use the slider in a very basic way. Decades later I still find myself discovering formulas. The sliders are a lot like chemicals. While it may be less messy and costly, those curves and up and downs are not any less subtle.
Mount Rainier by Asahel Curtis – Gold Orotype
Since the early days of photography, it seems people noticed the magic in a gold image. From the Platinum pallidum to the Curtis gold tones that were actually processed with real gold. The Orotone!
Maybe it’s the romance that early black and white created with its impure and often tinted results. Maybe it’s just because we love warm tones. It’s a color emotion thing. It’s why in cinema styles there are a lot of looks with orange and blue hues. Being opposite each other on a color wheel, they pair well.
So I recreated the early era darkroom and platinum looks in my Emulsions actions. They take that toning and make it easy to manage in layers. The platinum has a warm tone, not always Gold, but sometimes it actually feels gold.. In the future, I might add an authentic Orotone recipe into Emulsion actions as they can do more complex things than we create with presets and styles.
Here’s our goal…
Create dynamic gold tones that are not monochrome.
Try to maintain a gold that feels natural with other colors.
Make the gold tones versatile across many image types.
The perfect COLOR-Gold formula is NOT Selective color.
Rather than tinted black and white, these are created by how color is mixed and by the natural light in a scene. So if you have a backlit sunset, gold warmth comes more naturally and feels more at home. Don’t confuse this with ugly 90’s selective color.
You may have used the popular Classic Negative if you use Fuji X cameras. This is based on Superia 200 film, but it’s actually a very low saturation looks, while still retaining colors. I have a preset of Classic Negative that also you can download for free here. that I made to use on any field, like this Fuji XE3 street photo, since this model did not include that profile in the camera.
Not gold – Street workers, Filmist Classic Negative look on a Fuji XE3 RAW file.
You’ve seen this approach used in golden warm sunset photos but may not have even known it. These are not selective colors or black and white. They are shot and developed to focus on the golden warmth, but the color still remains.
I have tinkered with getting this look for over a decade in Lightroom, going all the way back to the first version of Power Workflow. More recently I had a great portrait-focused gold effect in the Muse preset pack called Gold Dust!
UPDATE – Get my Gold recipes as presets for Lightroom and Capture One with my finished Gold-Chrome pack.
Level 1 Gold toning Warm like a sunset but maintains rich color.
Gold Dust – tone from the Muse presets pack. Sony FIle.
We want that look you see in iconic street photos or magazines. It always starts with light in the camera, but if you develop well, that gold can even be added to less warm images and still feel perfect.
Level 1 is gentle. It could almost be mistaken for White Balance but it’s much richer. Complicating matters more, each camera is different. Fuji tones lean redder, Sony more green etc.
We live in a world of internet marketers selling tools that leave people unhappy. I deal with the fallout of that, which is why I always guarantee my products. I am passionate and often obsessed with this kind of recipe. It cannot just work on one photo, it has to work on most of them.
In the Filmist pack I might spend an entire week focused on a single recipe to get it just right. Today I’ll show you progressively more intense gold recipes I’ve developed.
Don’t do this with White Balance!
Yes, it’s fine to warm or cool a photo a little with WB. It’s one of the secrets of making any6 color formula work for YOUR camera. But you can’t get a proper golden tone with a WB cast adjustment. White balance is often used for this, but incorrectly. Toning needs to come from the more subtle color channel and wheels.
Why? First, no WB setting will work in a Lightroom preset or styles for Capture One. They vary on a per-image basis. Second, you want more depth. When you use the color wheel and even more curves, you have dynamic toning that moves with the shadows and highlights.
Take all the colors away, then start from zero.
TIP: If you’re trying to make a color tone, go to the HSL colors and desaturate every channel.
This working in reverse will really well to help you find the goal. Pull them all down… Now start moving color back in a little at a time.
Next, you mix those with color wheels in mids, shadows, and highlights, then tones. As you progress you will see your effect come to life.
I kept thinking about how to explain more simply how to use advanced color features in Lightroom and Capture One. I’ll be making a channel a video and I’ll post it here in the future when I have
Elote Girl – Cine Soft Brown mi.
On the lighter gold side, we’re talking about a warm overtone that has hints of gold. Another level 1 like we see right here with the elotes girl happy over her corn. Yes, they love their Elotes in Mexico and they are always buying them on the street covered in mayonnaise and chili.
This gets more complex as we go to curves. You can do amazing things with the individual color channels in curves. But you can make a mess very fast. The adjustment in the color cruces, whether in Lightroom, Capture One, or Photoshop, is very finite but very powerful.
Level 2 Gold Toning Softer color and more expansive warm tones.
But let’s go to level 2 gold. This is not about a vintage look. It’s about feeling good. I did these with what I call my El Dorado process. This pushes other colors down a bit more and focuses on the gold tones and color wheels. But it’s still a full-color photo.
El dorado process
A Gold-Chrome has colors from every channel.
We’re trying to empathize with a tone and feel of a scene that complements the real-world light. Even at level 2, we have a full-color spectrum, but golden warmth is all over the frame here. Level 2 done right, is actually very versatile.
This works great in atmospheric street scenes. But also fashion portraits and beyond. What we’re doing is using color to extend the existing emotions but in a way that doe snot feel like a fake color. If all color is equal, the image looks rather boring.
The parking garage, San Juan Del Rio Mexico -El Dorado tone
Now it’s starting to go GOLD!
By separating color and focusing on a specific range, we control the hues of a scene. In the case of Gold, it tends to give a warm sunset romantic vibe
IN going further we’re going to take a queue from the Curtis Gold tone. Because gold was part of the chemical process, it results in highlights being ultra gold. We’re still working in color, but let’s curve down those highlights and go further.
El Doroado gold chrome process. Level 2 still retains color well.
Going to level 3 – Ultra gold chrome color
What we’ve done is push curves and colors and how they respond more and more without selectively reducing any one color. The sensation of color is soft, leaving you with gold and warm rays. But the influence of the color is still there.
The boy on the dock. Ultra Gold tone. The color is there but the gold is more intense. In some photos, it feels perfectly natural.
In this photo on the lakeshore where it;’s clear sunset, it feels almost natural, but looking at the original file, you see just how much gold we added. I think with any process this should be the goal. Adding your recipe, while maintaining a feel that does not distract and feels right.
Original RAW file from a Fuji X100V
And yet we’ve all seen an image like this. Radiant golden rays that are intense, but feel natural. Like they convey an emotion that we might have felt in the real place. That’s the goal of photography. We have to convey that shadow, the sensation and to me, that’s what a great color formula is about.
A good Gold process is such that you don’t think about it being processed, yOU think about the feel and the story of this boy standing at the end of a dock waiting for his ship to come in. Or maybe something else.
Yes, Use RAW files and presets!
With any of the deep edits, you want RAw whenever possible. It’s especially popular amount street shooters to shoot JPEGs. The Fuji camera for example has great in-camera profiles. But you throw so much away in JPEG and if you want to deep deep recipes like this, you will be glad you have a RAW file to start from. Take a look at my video… Raw vs JPEG 2022.
It’s also important to have these as presets. We talking about adjustments that take hours. Especially when you refine them. So whether you buy presets like mine or make your own. Save at each step so you can use and compare easily later.
Ultra Gold color in a night street scene. Highlights are deeply affected giving this scene a vintage vibe.
Don’t be afraid to level up and do more.
By being progressively bolder, we’ve created a look that can be intense and still feel right. This post was about creating color gold tones. But it’s also about pushing developing settings.
I admit usually start with a presets or action to help kick me in the right direction.
If I see ten variants of a photo, it’s like adding visualizations to my brain and those adapt to create new ideas that I otherwise would have not discovered.
The level 3 process tends to look natural in photos where there is already a natural gold glow on the boy on the dock. Note the extremes in the highlights where level 3 pulls the upper curve down and fills it with warmth. This can work in other scenes like the night shot above, but it tends to bring a vintage vibe that is clearly a color effect. That’s not good to bad, just be aware.
My Gold Chrome Conclusion.
I like this look, which is why I have chased it for so long. How to edit and tone an image is a very personal choice and often there are many approaches that will look good. But if we become less timid, will draw out shadows and tones in new ways.
This has perhaps been an overly intensive look at gold chrome toning. But I’ve been chasing these tones for over a decade, and really ever since my grandpa talked with reverence about early ere Curtis Gold-Tone prints.
As these formulas are refined enough to work in most scenes, you may see them come out in my presets packs. The first level 1 Gold Dust tone is also part of my Muse Collection so if you have them play around and make your own variants.
20 years later I feel like I am starting to understand what needs to be done to make gold work. I have failed many times to get it right. A really good process is one you will come back to. If I am not there yet, I am on the way and I wanted to share with you and I hope you will share what you have found in the comments below.
Gavin Seim
L3 Gold Chrome church in the square. This takes extreme measures on highlights to give a very darkroom-like gold flavor.
Facebook and Instagram, went down today and I was like, “my site is still up”. So I thought I’d share these 3 videos of varying lengths on 3 different topics to boost our creativity and understanding of photography in everything from light to our roots. I Hope you guys find something useful here. If you do share it on Facebook.. oh wait…
If you get lost in the Jungles of Mexico, don’t sweat it. Your adventure VAN has everything you need and it’s safer here than most people think, so ask a nice local to give you directions.
As a filmmaker and a paragliding pilot along with my wife we need my gear and want to be able to go anywhere with it. Turns out optioned Toyota Sienna retails for $50,000 and while moms seem to love those, it won’t cross a river with an RV in tow or climb a mountain with your gear. We needed a van that was ready to roll anywhere; so we built it and created an adventure van that mom and dad both love.
The (mostly) finished product. The epic one and only truth van.
Swan was our 5th and she came last year; that meant my crew cab pickup would no longer haul the family. More than that we needed a vehicle that would be self-contained and was ready for on the road adventures in since we spend months of each year exploring. Our van setup turned out to be very timely for our travel to Mexico as we expose the propaganda that the USA is the best country in the world.
I’ve yet to settle down enough to do a full video tour of the van but it’s coming. This 2013 Chevy Express 3500 15 passenger with a Duramax engine. The Diesel is pretty rare but you can find them used. The latest Diesel’s have the new wimpy engines and are not great towers. We bought this last Summer pretty much stock and just under 100k miles. It cost about $24,000. My Summer project begins in everything from changing the ugly carpet to a custom powder coated diamond plate floor with the help of my metal working brother in law.
We installed triple Yakima racks and then the largest roof boxes they made, a rooftop tent and a wood platform with a solar panel that I could also stand on to shoot from. We redid the electronics adding with a Pioneer 8200 nav stereo, new speakers, a small sub and finally 360 degree lighting. And that floor, that would allow us to have a sturdy surface to attack toolboxes and accessories inside; everything is modular.
Getting started with a clean canvas.
Next we drove it to Utah with our 10K lb travel trailer in tow. The van went to Advanced 4×4 in Salt Lake City for the really good stuff. A full 4×4 conversion, a lift, 33in tires with 17in wheels and of course these epic front and rear bumper system from Aluminess. The suspension was upgraded and airbags were installed for better towing as we rolled out.
That was finished in a few different phases then it was back to my work adding things like hi-lift jack, a 12,000lb winch to the front bumper and filling those rear boxes with tools, camping supplies, a stove Rotopax tanks and more. The rear bumper also carries our extra fuel and everything we need from water to food. Finally, we had the Duramax custom tuned by Starlite Diesel with a 5-way switch on the fly tuner to change the performance of the engine depending on what we’re doing.
We did not make the inside into a full RV van since we usually pull a trailer. One great thing about vans is from the roof to the chassis they are like a canvas; so build it however you like. We opted to keep the inside open for hauling families and paragliders but added things like extra plugs, improved LED lights and an inverter for AC power right inside the cabin. We also have a truck beds mattress so the entire area behind the two bench seats can become an extra bed.
We can sleep in the rooftop tent or inside when not towing an RV and the essential supplies and tools are always board. I have a few ideas up my sleeve for a modular bed inside that won’t interfere with cargo and people hauling abilities. The metal floor is rugged, but all the seat slots still work so you can configure it as needed. We leave the 2 rear seats out when traveling so there is room for bikes and gear and it still seats 8 with plenty of room for hitchhikers in the back.
We the van buried on the the other side of this dune in Mexico with the RV attached. But some friendly locals and a Hi-Lift jack solved the problem.
This was a big project. All told we have about 55k into this rig. That’s with the van itself, 4×4 conversion, racks, floors, lights, tent, everything. It gets 16-19mpg when not towing and averages 12 with a 10k lb RV behind it. If we had found one this nice already done I figure it would have been at least 65K, there are very few like it. There’s been a few glitches and fixes to dial it all in because it was a used rig. Then again a new diesel would push 60K just for the van and still have glitches.
Jungle Camping without a trailer with my wife and 5 kids in Jalpan de Serra, Mexico.
In central Mexico and a guy came over and did a full exterior detail and polish for $30USD, It reflects the sunset today.
Tips for building your own. Ford and Chevy are good but many things the Chev rides better. I say get a gasser unless you need the heavy towing like Diesel is great for that, but they are harder to fix and cost more initially too so if you don’t need 600lbs of torque, save your pennies for your adventures.
We did lights, floors and rack work ourselves. But the bumpers and mechanical conversions were all done by Advanced 4×4 and done right. They are the largest 4×4 conversion shop next to Quickly back east. You could grab a gasoline van like this stock for around 16k and new I think they are only in the 20’s. Then convert it to your liking. You could also look at the Nissan vans, they are sweet and convert well to 4×4. The Sprinters are nice too but getting a 4×4 conversion is not easy so, bear that in mind when planning.
We call her the Truth Van. It’s not a sports car, it’s better and it cost less. A practical vehicle that goes almost anywhere and takes the people and the gear you need to get there, get the shot and spread the truth. We feel blessed to have been able to rig this out when we did and it’s seeing lots of use as we travel the continent.
