Never before have we been armed with such a diverse set of techniques that allows an incredible level of creativity. Unlike traditional film processing we can quickly undo mistakes that have been made, we can adjust the look and feel of a shot right in front of our eyes without delay. Although I am an avid film photographer, you cannot but get excited and what the world of digital photography has given us.

1. Toning with curves

Using curves in photoshop is the simplest way to tone an image, with your image open select layer/new adjustment layer/curves. This allows for the toning only to affect the layer and not the image.
Now double click on the created layer, this will bring up the curves dialogue box, you will see at the top a drop down menu where you can select the red, green or blue channels. Making changes to the channels allows you to create different toning effects.

Copper toning

Select the blue channel and drag the curve down a little and to the right, you will see you have a slight yellow / green cast over the image, now select the green channel and drag that a little to the right this is the magenta side. You should now have a brown cast over the image, now select the red channel and drag this to the left until you see a nice copper tone.
Depending on where you start dragging corresponds to the highlights, mid tones or shadows. For the above effect I have chosen to drag from the centre.

Sepia toning

Sepia toning is produced the same way as above, except we do not drag the red channel as far so we end up with a nice sepia tone instead of a copper tone.

2. Toning with hue and saturation

A quick and easy way to tone a photo is to use the hue and saturation method. While this is quick and easy it is also to be noted this affects the original image unlike the curves technique.

To use the hue saturation method select image/adjustments/hue saturation, when the dialogue box pops up select the colorize check box. Simply adjust the hue and saturation sliders until you are happy with the effect.

3. The split toning technique

We do not have to simply use one toning effect we can introduce many tones to a single image this is known as split toning. Achieving split toning in the dark room is a long and complicated process while the digital method is simple, clean and allows for mistakes to be corrected with the click of the mouse button.

With your image open select image/adjustments/curves like we did previously now double click on the newly created layer again to open the dialogue box. Now select the blue channel, this time I want you to anchor the dark and mid tones by clicking the curve to anchor those parts of the tonal curve. Now we are going to repeat a step to create a sepia tone.

Select the blue channel and drag the curve down a little and to the right, you will see you have a slight yellow / green cast over the image, now select the green channel and drag that a little to the right this is the magenta side. You should now have a brown cast over the image, now select the red channel and drag this to the left until you see a nice sepia tone.

Once you are happy with your partial sepia tone that should only be affecting the highlight tones of the image select the blue channel. Now as before we want to anchor part of the curve except this time anchor the highlight tones, now drag the shadow part of the curve left and up a little you should now see a blue cast affecting the lowlights of the image.
Play with this technique to produce some interesting toned images, try copper with sepia this can produce a lovely feel to the right photo.

4. Toning with colour balance

Our final method of toning is using the colour balance technique, this is another rough and ready method of toning that still produces sound results.
First have your desired image open and select layer/new adjustment layer/colour balance once the dialogue box opens select the shadows check box now select the yellow / blue slider and slide it towards the blue end about +25% or so or until you have a blue cast over the shadows. Now rename that layer to something like shadow.

Now select layer/new adjustment layer/colour balance again, this time we are going to select the highlights checkbox now move the yellow/blue slider a little to the left and the cyan/red slider a little to the right until you have a sepia tone cast over the highlights of the image.  You are all done and have just used colour balance to split tone an image, congratulations.

Again as I always say time to experiment, try different combinations for different effects, you cannot go wrong and can always undo, you have to love digital processing.
If you think you could add anything to this tutorial or have some input please leave a comment, until next time happy snapping.