# Image Duotone

Give any photo a bold two color duotone look. The tool measures the brightness of each pixel and maps it onto a gradient between a shadow color and a highlight color, so black becomes your shadow color, white becomes your highlight color and every tone in between blends smoothly. Pick any two hex colors to match a brand palette, poster design or album cover style.

## Frequently asked questions

### How does the duotone mapping work?

Each pixel is converted to a brightness value from 0 to 1 using the Rec. 709 luminance weights. That value picks a color on a straight line between the shadow color and the highlight color. Pure black gets exactly the shadow color and pure white exactly the highlight color.

### How do I enter the colors?

Type hex codes with a leading hash, either six digits such as #1d3557 or three digit shorthand such as #fa0. The defaults are a deep navy for shadows and a warm sand for highlights. Invalid codes are rejected with a message.

### Which color combinations work best?

Pair a dark, saturated shadow color with a light highlight color so the image keeps its contrast, for example navy and peach, purple and yellow, or dark green and mint. Swapping the colors so the light one is in the shadows gives an inverted, negative style.

### Is this the same as a gradient map?

Yes, a duotone is a gradient map with two stops. Editors call the same effect gradient map or duotone, and the result here matches a linear two stop gradient map. For a single color tint, use the Image Tint tool instead.

### Are the original colors used at all?

Only their brightness is used. A red and a green of the same brightness end up with the same duotone color. That is what gives duotones their unified, graphic look.

### Does it keep transparency?

Yes, the alpha channel is kept, so cutouts and logos stay transparent around the recolored subject. The result is saved as PNG.

### How do I get more contrast in the duotone?

Increase the contrast of the photo first with the Image Levels or Image Local Contrast tool, then apply the duotone. More separation between dark and light tones spreads the image across more of the gradient.

### Which formats can I upload?

JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, TIFF and AVIF images up to 5 MB are supported. Animated files use their first frame and images over 4000 pixels on a side are scaled down to fit.

### Where are duotones used?

Duotones are popular in posters, music artwork, editorial layouts, website heroes and social media campaigns, because they make different photos look like one consistent set in brand colors. They also reproduce well in print with limited inks.

### Is the result exactly repeatable?

Yes, the mapping is a fixed calculation, so the same file and colors always produce an identical PNG. You can reuse the same pair of colors to keep a whole campaign consistent.

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