Analysis of my Red experimental Duo-tone image

Analysis of my Red experimental Duo-tone image 

Original 

                                                  

Grayscale and Duo-tone  

                                    

Duo-tone Experiment (Cropped)

I chose this image as it was the most strikingly red image I had captured. I like how the bright light on the right hand side of the image draws you inwards and it makes the buckle on the left hand side stand out. It makes it appear as if the buckle is coming towards you, giving it an illusion of movement. The first image is bright giving it a youthful feel.

Just like my green image I took this photo into Photoshop to apply greyscale and duo-tone. When I had greyscaled the image you adjusted the levels of shadow to add more depth to the image. After I duo-toned the image and added the red I found the image appeared more brown. It seemed to lose the vibrancy of the original image and the meaning of the image changed too. The bag appears less youthful and looks more formal. It also ages the bag giving the impression it belongs to someone of the business world.

When the image is duo-toned it appears more brown. The reason I think this happens is the ratio of black and red isn’t balanced. As black is a dominant colour it absorbs the vibrancy of the red making it a duller image and more brown in tone. Like when mixing black and red paints together a brown colour is created. I was annoyed by the effect of this on the image as I wanted a strong overall red tone. As a result of this I decided to change the colours I had applied in duo-tone from red and black to two different variations of red.

I liked the result of applying two different reds, it gave the image the bright red colour I wanted. It changed the overall feel of the image it lost the sharpness of the image and become softer, a more relaxing image. It’s not as bold as the original colour, it has a haze, a warmth and relaxing feel. The effect ages the image and makes it appear older, in a good way. Like an old photograph of cherished moment. It also reminds me of festivals, to me it captures something of an enjoyed moment.

I chose to crop the image the way I did as I wanted to keep the right to left eye movement as I liked the way the light draws the eye inwards. I also wanted to remove the person from the image as I wanted the bag to take on a life of its own, by eliminating the context of it being in use. By removing the person from this image the bag becomes the story rather than the person carrying it.

In duo-tone there are other options that allow you to add more than just two colours to an image. I would like at some point to experiment with more than two colours to see what effect it has on the image and if I can create different colour just using the RGB/CMYK palate.