Toning images

Some images we see we experience as captivating, others we don’t spend any time on.

Anyone who wants to communicate through images hopes to achieve the first.

The question is how to get there.

Is it enough to make an exiting composition or capture the right moment?

What is it that pleases our eye and invokes the desire to stay longer with the image?

I think we stay longer with an image that presents an illusion of space.

An image where we can be persuaded to think we could actually be there ourselves.

Such a picture will most likely trigger our imagination.

And that is a very pleasant experience.

It can bring new insights and is most likely to give you a moment of lightness.

To get to this result it is vital that an image has two things in abundance.

I refer to them as density and contrast.

Contrast can only be applied properly once there is enough tone or ink to work on.

This will bring out all the intricate little tones that you need to make a proper contrast.

And a good contrast creates a sense of space or three dimensionality.