Two Tone GIMP

Apply a Two-Tone Tint Effect to an Image

In this tutorial you'll see how a two-tone tinting effect can be easily applied to a picture using GIMP.

Among the tools and techniques you'll use in this tutorial ...

• Desaturate an image
• Set guides by percent
• Multiply layer mode
• Layer mask
• Blend tool

First open an RGB (color) picture to use as the base image for this tutorial. I found this nice image of kids playing football, but you can apply this technique to just about any RGB image.

Step 1 - Desaturate the image and adjust the brightness and contrast

Colors - Desaturate... Use the default settings in the Desaturate dialog.

Next, Colors - Brightness-Contrast...

In the Brightness-Contrast dialog, set the Brightness to 15 and the Contrast to 18. You may want to adjust these settings to work better for your base image.

The result should be something like this.

Step 2 - Set three horizontal guidelines to help define the tinted regions

Image - Guides - New Guide (by Percent)...

Set a Horizontal guide at 25%.

Set two more guides in the same way, one at 50%, one at 75%.

Note the percentages are 0% at the top and left to 100% at the bottom and right.

Step 3 - Apply a green tint to the lower half of the image

Create a new transparent layer named Green tint, Layer - New Layer...

Now fill this layer with green. You'll need to select the Bucket Fill tool and set the foreground color to green (00cb2f).

Your picture should now be solid green. From the Layers palette select Multiply from the Mode dropdown list.

You should now see your picture with a green tint applied to the entire image. Next, you'll use a layer mask to limit the tint to the lower portion of the image.

Layer - Mask - Add Layer Mask... Be sure White (Full Opacity) is selected in the dialog.

Next you need to paint a black to white gradient on the layer mask Select the Blend tool and be sure the colors are reset to the default black foreground and white background.

Draw your blend line from the top down to the 75% guide to get the following result.

Step 4 - Apply a yellow tint to the upper half of the image

Create a new transparent layer named Yellow tint in the same way you created the Green tint layer in Step 3, then fill this layer with yellow (ffff00).

Apply a layer mask to the Yellow tint layer as described in the previous step, but draw the blend line from the bottom up to the 25% guide to achieve the following.

Finally, remove all the guidelines. Image - Guides - Remove all Guides.

Finish up by flattening the image and saving it as a JPG.

That's it. I think it's a nice effect to use in some images. You might like to experiment with applying the two-tone effect vertically or even diagonally, maybe even along a curve.

Hope you picked up a new skill or idea. If you liked this lesson, please share it.

I'm trying something new. I'm embedding the map I used to write this tutorial. It might be a good post-tutorial reference.