B&W with a splash of color

Hey everyone, I hope you're getting some useful tips from this. I think that this is probably the last tutorial that I have left to give. Unless I can think of another one in the next couple of weeks that is. This one is a personal favorite of my sister-in-law's. It is a B&W photo with one thing drawn out in color. It's actually pretty simple to do and you will see just how simple they are to do, once you've gone through this entire tutorial.

You start off with a colored photo. I chose to use a picture that I took of my niece. (Isn't she a cutie?) After you've adjusted it the way you want it, color and all, you then save it. Don't close out the file because you aren't done with it yet. Take that same photo and turn it B&W (see previous tutorial). Save the file with a new name so that you don't overwrite the colored photo you just saved. Next thing you are going to do is open both files in Photoshop. You will want the two pictures separated like having two separate windows open for the internet, like so. (this is when I am grateful that Jay decided that we needed two computer monitors for our desktop)

(Just a friendly reminder: you can click on any of these photos to see the larger version of them.)



Next, you are going to want to zoom in on the color picture to the part that you want to bring out in color on the B&W photo. On this picture, I chose the flower. Make sure that you zoom equally on both pictures by looking at the percentage at the top of the photo. There may be times where you will not be able to get them exactly the same, but try to get them as close as possible. Next, you are going to choose your magnetic lasso tool on the right hand side. It looks like an upside down wire hanger.




Go to your subject and click on where you wan to start. The cool thing about the magnetic lasso tool is that it will follow exactly what it is you're trying to trace just as long as you remain close to the lines. Just to be on the safe side, you may want to click (be careful not to double-click) on certain points just to make sure you stay on track. For me, I just did a "safe" click on the points of each petal. Keep tracing the object until you get back to the starting point just like if you were playing "connet the dots" make sure you click on the exact spot you started at. Once you've done that your object will be completely traced in dotted lines like below. (you will have to click on the photo for the larger version to see this one)


Next, right-click on your object and that will pull up a drop down menu. click on "layer via cut".

Then comes the reason why we needed to make these pictures two separate windows and make sure they were zoomed in equally. You are going to selecet the Move tool (looks like an arrow with a cross next to it). Click on your object and drag it to the B&W photo, lining it up over the object you would like to make color.


Make sure that you get it over the object exactly.


And that's it! Who knew that it was that simple? Now you can save the picture and close out the others. Make sure that if you want to keep those other photos you do not want to say "yes" to the changes when you close them out. Just say "no". LOL

And this is what the finished picture looked like when I was done with it.


After placing my watermark over this picture, I thought maybe I could do a tutorial about creating a watermark for those that are interested. Although, I don't know if I would be able to get it on here within the next couple of weeks. It would greatly depend on what my schedule allows. In the meantime, for those of you who ARE interested, look around and maybe take a picture of something that you would like to put into your watermark. The flower in my watermark above, actually came from a picture that I took of one in my garden. I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut it out. You have plenty of time to decide what you would like and take the picture. In the meantime, until I can get the watermark tutorial up, practice using these other techniques and discover your own style of photography. Until next time, Ciao!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009