Can anyone tell me how to

scottduffy

scottduffy

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Scott
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edit a picture so that most of it is black and white but part of it is in colour? I have been asked by a friend to take some wedding pictures for her (unpaid) and she asked me if they could be colour, black and white and some with her flowers as the only colour in the picture. I told her i couldn't do that the last part but thought i would check to see if this is difficult and if not i might be able to try it for her.
 
What software are you using?
 
It would depend on what photo editing software you have for the specifics but generally:
  1. Select the area you wish to have in colour, with either the free hand select or the magic wand or whatever tools your package has
  2. invert the selection so the rest of the image is now the active selection
  3. Use the desaturate tool or similar to make the active selection black and white

The trickiest part is getting the initial selection just right but normally you can zoom in and keep adding little bits of selected areas to build it up till you are happy.

If you are going to do these types of shot then keep that in mind when you are taking the photos in the first place so you get the flowers in the right part of the photo for a nice composition when you've done this selective colour process.
 
Without going into too much detail, if you use Photoshop then create a separate black and white layer above your colour layer and then use a layer mask to paint back in the coloured areas. You can do this in PS elements too.

I'm sure someone might go into a little more detail for you and i'm sure others will question the fact your taking wedding photos as that usually happens!
 
Thanks guys. I have photoshop 4 but to be honest i know nothing about it as i very rarely use it. I might get myself the idiots guide or something similar and have a go at it. I was just wondering if it could be done and how difficult it was.

Goffski,

I am not fussed whether someone questions my taking these pictures as it's a favour to a friend who is more than happy with the images i usually produce. They couldn't care less if i am a photoshop master.
 
Hi there, i did these instructions for myself after i had taken some photos of my friends wedding (as guest photographer) she wanted some of her in black and white with her flowers in colour - they came out really well -hope the instructions make sense ....

- open your photo
- select ‘layer’ and ‘new adjustment layer’ and ‘hue/saturation’
- In the window that opens move the ‘saturation’ slider all the way to the left
- Bring up layers palette (press F7)
- Click on the white box (the mask)
- On the left hand side click on the black/white boxes at bottom – this sets the colour to pure white and black
- Click on the small double arrow – the black square needs to be on the top
- Select the brush tool (4th down on 2nd column)
- Go to the wedding photo and begin painting the area to be in colour
- Nb black makes holes in the mask and white fills them in.
- Go to ‘layer’ and ‘flatten image’
- Save the photo under a new name.
 
Thanks Melanie i'll give this a go. Jason it's CS4 mate.
 
Another way to get color in a black and white photo is to open it in photoshop, make image black and white then use the history brush tool to bring color back to the flowers again or whatever you want to color. Set the brush size and and zoom in on photo helps...
 
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