Selective Colouring

[Peter DYER]

Can anyone help me out with a simple way of doing selective colouring using Adobe Photoshop 7.0. I can do the basic stuff but adobe isn't really user friendly. Thanks

[phillipb]

Hi Peter,
Assuming that photoshop 7 has a history brush, the easiest way to do selective colouring is to turn the photo to black & white and then paint the colour back in using the history brush in the parts of the photo you want.

[Aussie Dave]

Hi Peter
Another option you can try is to:

- Duplicate the original layer
- Convert the new layer into B&W (there are plenty of methods you can use to go from colour to B&W)
- use the erase tool and erase the parts (in the new layer) that you want to be in colour.

The coloured parts will show through and once you're done, you can simply select all then copy merged & create a new image. Should you want the original colour image again, just hide the new layer.

That's the great thing about Photoshop....there's so many different ways to accomplish the same thing. Try them all and find the one that works best for you....

[Antsl]

- Convert the new layer into B&W (there are plenty of methods you can use to go from colour to B&W)
- use the erase tool and erase the parts (in the new layer) that you want to be in colour.

Actually, you are better off applying a layer mask to the new layer and then painting back in with the paint brush the areas that you want to keep or not keep. Worth noting is that you can toggle between the two colours that are going to reveal or hide the lower image, the black and white in the colour pallete, simply by hitting the X key on the keyboard. This makes life a lot easier and if you accidently reveal or hide something you just have to hit the X key and paint it back in.

As an extra step... drop in a hue and saturation layer between these two layers and you can desaturate the lower layer to remove some of the colour intentsity from the colour regions of the image. If you want to add a warm tone to the top black and white layer, apply it using Colour Balance once you have desaturated it to black and white.

Hope this is a help! PhotoShop is simple once you have learnt the tricks!

[Matt. K]

Or any of the above.

[Antsl]

Or any of the above.

Hi Matt,
I would almost aggree with you but using the erase tool directly on a layer does not provide the same degree of forgiveness, particularly when, after about 100 steps or more you decide you want to go back about the image and impove on things. I wish someone had taught me about layer masks back when I started using PhotoShop 5.5 in my work several years ago... I would have saved myself so many hours!

[Aussie Dave]

- Convert the new layer into B&W (there are plenty of methods you can use to go from colour to B&W)
- use the erase tool and erase the parts (in the new layer) that you want to be in colour.

Actually, you are better off applying a layer mask to the new layer and then painting back in with the paint brush the areas that you want to keep or not keep. Worth noting is that you can toggle between the two colours that are going to reveal or hide the lower image, the black and white in the colour pallete, simply by hitting the X key on the keyboard. This makes life a lot easier and if you accidently reveal or hide something you just have to hit the X key and paint it back in.

As an extra step... drop in a hue and saturation layer between these two layers and you can desaturate the lower layer to remove some of the colour intentsity from the colour regions of the image. If you want to add a warm tone to the top black and white layer, apply it using Colour Balance once you have desaturated it to black and white.

Hope this is a help! PhotoShop is simple once you have learnt the tricks!

Good tips Antsl. I have used Layer masks in the past and they are versatile. Not sure why I started using the erase tool, but in any case, if I make a mistake I either hit Ctrl + Z to undo or jump into the history. Probably the more round-a-bout way of doing it, but I usually pick up on mistakes as I go and go back straight away - so it hasn't been an issue for me......but I agree the layer mask is "technically" the better way to do it.

As I said earlier, try them all and find the one that works best for you. It doesn't have to be the best method...just the one that works for you. That's why Photoshop is so versatile

[Peter DYER]

Guys, thanks for your helpful responses. I have gone with Phillips advice as it is dead easy and looks great. I will try the other methods though when I get a chance. Thanks again

[Matt. K]

Antsl
I agree with you entirely. I was being disruptive!

[Ronza]

A more subtle method I use is to simply desaturate each of the colours by pulling their sliders back (and hopefully leaving one or two saturated). I do so in Lightroom however if you CTRL + U in PS, you ought to be able to pull back certain colours that dominate the photograph. If your shooting RAW, it might even pay to push the WB to a very cold/warm temperature than desaturate the Blue/Cyan/Yellow channels.

Its a method I use alot when I want it to be subtle or to simplify a photograph but don't necessarily want to go all the way to a B&W image nor, in certain cases, use the methods posted above for fear of "tackiness".

If you mix it up with the Marquee tool and some feathering, you should be able to take "my" method a bit further and direct it more specifically to certain parts of the image as well.