Tone Contrast Layering

Tone defines the lightness or darkness of a color.

In B&W photography the color is gray. In color imaging it can be any color.

White and black are extreme ends that define tone.

Tonal contrast is the difference between the lightest and darkest tone in an image.

Tone contrast is completely different than color contrast.

The eye is drawn to areas of contrast (where light and dark tones meet).

The greater this contrast, the more likely that the eye will go there first.

When tone contrast is set to extreme, it becomes visually graphic.

This is a high tone contrast image because it displays an extreme from the light end to the dark end with little tones in-between.

If there were a full range of tones displayed between light and dark it would be a "full" tone contrast image.