My first attempt at a manual split-tone conversion, an idler wheel and a section of the tracks on the bulldozer from the "Declawed Cat" photo.

S-M-C Takumar 28/3.5

[roentarre]

The split tone conversion is something I could never perfect in.

Your image demonstrated superb texture with beautiful contrast. Mike, this is something I always try to do but not sure how to do it.

I followed a few guys blogs in Spain where some of the landscape not only had rich colour but also the texture appearance you have shown here. I would really love to know if you can shed a bit of insight into this. Just a general tip or direction and I could work something out myself.

Adding this as an adjustment layer would really add magic to a lot of landscape shots!

[Mike Cash]

The texture bit is embarassingly easy. After finishing all the other processing (in The GIMP) I go to Filters > Map > Bump Map and use the default settings. Sometimes it looks better than other times. Sometimes I decide that I don't like it and I undo it and leave it out.

I stumbled across a tutorial for doing split-tones in the GIMP group on Flickr today and decided to try it out. I've made a couple of variations on it, but basically it goes:

1. Start with a b/w image in RGB mode.
2. Duplicate it
3. Add new layer and bucket fill with your favorite shade of orange
4. In "Overlay" mode merge the orange level down

You now have two layers: the original background and the orange-tinted layer.

5. Duplicate the background (b/w) layer and move it to the top
6. Add new layer and bucket fill it with the orange again
7. Hit CTRL+I to invert the orange to blue
8. Merge down in "Overlay"

You now have three layers: original b/w background, orange-tint, and blue-tint

9. Select the orange layer, right-click and "Add Layer Mask"
10. Choose "Grayscale Copy of Layer" and click "OK"
11. Select the blue layer and repeat #9 and #10, but click the box for "Invert Mask"

Leave the b/w layer on the bottom, but experiment with moving either the blue or the orange layer to the top for a warmer or cooler appearance.

Once you're used to that, you can just go ahead and create two duplicates, create an orange level, duplicate and invert it and be done with all that stuff in no time flat. Then you just shuffle the layers into place and do the other steps. You can also skip the orange-blue color inversion if instead of "Overlay" you merge one in "Grain Merge" and the other in "Grain Extract" (it has the effect of inverting in the extract mode).

[roentarre]

Thanks for this comprehensive list. I am sure I will be able to get a hang of it after experimenting it for a while.

This would be fun and really appreciating your time to write all this down. I think the texture bit was stunningly easy there. I guess I had not read enough

Thank you