Apply a Duotone Effect to Any Photo
Map shadows and highlights to two colors for a bold, on-brand look. Pick your color pair, preview live, and export a striking duotone image.
Free preview · No signup · ~10 seconds
Map shadows and highlights to two brand colors — the same gradient map the app applies.
Duotone Presets
Click any flat shade to copy its hex code
A Bold, On-Brand Look in Seconds
What duotone actually does
It's a gradient map, not a color overlay. Every pixel's brightness gets remapped — pure black becomes the shadow color, pure white becomes the highlight, everything in between blends proportionally. That's what gives it depth instead of a flat tint.
Any two colors, live preview
Paste your exact brand hex values or use the color picker. The effect updates live so you can dial in contrast and mood before exporting. No re-uploads, no waiting.
Color pair is everything
High contrast (dark shadow, bright highlight) → bold and graphic, Spotify-style. Low contrast (two similar hues) → flat, avoid it. Best practice: primary color as highlight, near-black or dark complementary as shadow.
Use it as a background layer
Export the duotone image and drop it straight into the Social Banners studio as a background or base layer. Build posts, headers, and ads with a consistent brand treatment across every size.
Common mistakes to avoid
Two mistakes flatten a duotone: picking colors too close in brightness, which erases the light-to-dark range, and starting from a photo that is already low in contrast. Choose a clearly dark shadow and a clearly bright highlight, and begin with an image that has real tonal depth rather than a hazy, evenly-lit one.
How to Make a Duotone Image
Upload your photo
Drag and drop a photo in PNG, JPG, or WebP format.
Select Duotone
Choose the Duotone tool to map the image to two colors.
Pick your two colors
Set a shadow color and a highlight color using the pickers or exact hex codes to match your brand.
Preview and export
Adjust until the contrast looks right, then export your duotone image in high quality.
Apply a Duotone Effect to Any Photo — in the editor
The real editor, start to finish — no signup needed to try it yourself.
Free preview · No signup · ~10 seconds
Where Duotone Shines
Brand Imagery
Unify a photo set with your brand color pair for a cohesive feed.
Campaigns
Give promo visuals a bold, recognizable treatment.
Banner Backgrounds
Create striking backgrounds for posts, headers, and thumbnails.
Presentations
Style slide imagery to match your deck palette.
Or just ask
Describe the edit in your own words
Type what you want changed and the assistant does it on the canvas — each step lands as a layer you can reopen, so nothing it does is baked in.
No edits yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Tools
Guides worth reading
How to Make a Duotone in Photoshop (Gradient Map vs Duotone Mode)
Photoshop has two duotone features and the one named Duotone is usually the wrong one. Why Image > Mode > Duotone demands a Grayscale conversion, why Gradient Map is what you actually want, and how to keep it editable.
How to Make a Duotone Image in Canva (Presets, Custom Hexes, and the Intensity Trap)
Canva's Duotone effect in full — where it hides, how to set custom highlight and shadow colors, why Intensity below 100 stops you hitting a brand hex, and what it does to a logo with a background.
How to Make a Duotone Image in Figma (Building One From Blend Modes)
Figma has no duotone effect. You assemble one from a desaturated image and two blended rectangles — here is the layer stack, the order that matters, and an honest account of what it costs to maintain.
Ready for a Duotone Look?
Pick two colors, preview the effect live, and export a bold duotone image in high quality. Start free.