I’ve always admired the work of Ansel Adams and Bradford Washburn, so it’s no surprise that I’m a big fan of black and white and toned images. There's just someting compelling about a well done monochrome image that draws me into it. Lightroom gives the user plenty of control over grayscale image conversions but the split toning tools are less intuitive (at least for me). It’s always taken more time to come up with the effect I’m trying for.
One of the less obvious, but more interesting changes in Lightroom 2.0 beta is the color picker that has been added to the split tone controls. Just above the Hue and Saturation sliders you’ll find a box that initially doesn’t stand out much from the background. Clicking on this gives you a color picker to select a color value from. If you click and hold the mouse button while moving around the color picker, you’ll see your image update with the current color value. Normally, I’ll select the Grayscale option before toning the image. One advantage to the color picker method is the ability to adjust hue and saturation in one operation rather than moving back and forth between the two controls. If you get lost, just click on the gray swatch at the top right of the box to reset.

If you have a combination you find useful, you can store it as a preset by right clicking (or control clicking on the Mac) on one of the swatches and selecting “Set this Swatch to Current Color”

While the end result may be the same as in Lightroom 1.4, getting there is much easier for me and reduces the amount of time I spend creating a split tone image. If you too like the split tone look, be sure to check out this new feature in 2.0.