B&W pics with a little color

[SAWYER]

I like this in some pics and made this today, does it work? I only know one way to do this, I desaturate and then use the history brush. Are there better ways? Also, how can I intensify or tone done specific colors in a pic?

 

[mrSHEiK124]

*I am not a pro*

Damn! Nice job, that looks cool. As far as intensifying colors goes - intensify the colors you want, then desaturate, and then history brush?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

mask?

 

[ProfJohn]

Make just the blue color and leave everything else b&w.

My 2 cents

 

[angry hampster]

Channel mixer.

 

[rivan]

Duplicate the layer, desaturate, then mask to reveal the areas you want in color. Undoable/editable after closing/opening.

My personal habit is to always leave an original image in my files, usually as the background, then build on top of it via layers. This retains maximum flexibility/editability.

 

[darkewaffle]

www.albinoblacksheep.com/tutorial/pleasantville

Not sure if that'll be of any use, but it sounds like what you're doing. Can't see from work.

 

[yhelothar]

I much prefer desaturating certain colors so that certain colors don't stick out. For example, if the image is fairly warm, and there's a lot of green vegetation in the background, desaturate the greens and make em slightly more yellow.

To do this, I go to hue/saturation. Select green from the dropdown menu, and use the eyedropper tool to select the vegetation. Try widening the selection range to fit the vegetation without widening it too much that you change other stuff that you don't wanna change.

A simpler way to do this, but won't give you as much control is to go to edit, adjust, selective color. Select green from the dropdown menu and adjust the color balance there to taste.

 

[rivan]

Also, depending on image content, I often get very pleasing greyscale conversions by converting to LAB, then tossing the A+B channels.

http://www.thewonderoflight.com/articles/?page_id=107

So duplicate the background to a new document, do the greyscale conversion, then duplicate that back to the original document. Use masks to allow color through.

 

[Paladin3]

This is meant as constructive comments, not thread crapping.

I've seen the B&W with a little color so often that it is almost cliche now. It seems like every budding photographer has applied this technique to a mundane photo and thinks it makes the image into art. We use to say "a little Photoshop knowledge is a dangerous thing."

If you are going to do it, be sparing with the technique and only use it where really compliments the photo. The same goes for any "gimmick", e.g., silhouettes, over saturated colors, extreme wide angle, etc.

Edit: I wouldn't mind being poolside, fresh from a swim, on a warm day right now as opposed to all this snow we've got here.