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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Selective Color on a Photo

Okay, this definitely was the most popular request...how to make an object stay in color, while the rest of the photo is black and white. So, here it goes...
1) Open your photo (I suggest editing it first in it's color version...i.e. ready for printing)
2) From the Layer menu, select duplicate layer (this will become our B/W layer)
3) Now we will select an adjustment layer to our duplicate layer (probably called Background Copy). This is the black/white circle button on your layers menu (kinda like Ying/Yang).
4) Move the Saturation bar to -100 to make the duplicate layer all grayscale.
5) While on the Hue/Saturation Layer (top layer), we need to make a layer mask. Then from the layers palette, choose the Vector Mask button (square with circle in the middle).
6) Now we will paint over what we want restored to color. You probably need to flip your foreground and background colors. Black should be on top and white below. Black restores the color underneath so make sure black is your foreground color before painting.
7) Paint over the desired object(s) to restore the color underneath. You will probably have to adjust your brush size for smaller areas.
Pretty easy, huh? In case you weren't sure what was what in the Layers Palette, here's a snapshot...

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