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Photoshop - selective coloring effect [TUT]

Tutorial Name: Photoshop - selective coloring effect [TUT]  

Category: PC Tutorials

Submitted By: NFS

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Views: 1,580

Related Forum: PC Building Forum

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For my image I want to leave the four Easter eggs in color while converting everything else to black and white. Here's what the final result will look like:

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Step 1: Select Your Main Subject
Using the selection tool of your choice (Lasso Tool Quick Selection Tool Pen Tool etc) draw a selection outline around the main subject of your photo. In my case, since the eggs have smooth curved edges Ill use the Pen Tool but of course your photo will be different and a different selection tool may work better. When you're done you should see a selection outline (the marching ants) around your subject:

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Step 2: Invert The Selection
We now have our main subject selected, but what we actually need is for everything except the main subject to be selected which means we need to invert our selection. Go up to the Select menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen and choose Inverse. Or for a faster way to invert a selection just press Shift+Ctrl+I (Win) / Shift+Command+I on your keyboard:

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You may have to look closely to notice what happened since the initial selection outline will still be around your subject but you should now see a second selection outline around the edges of your image. This tells us that everything in the image except the main subject is now selected

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Step 3: Add A Black & White Adjustment Layer
Believe it or not, we're almost done! Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

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Then choose Black & White from the list of adjustment layers that appears:

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Photoshop adds the Black & White adjustment layer, and instantly we have our selective color effect! The photo is converted to black and white except for the main subject we selected back in Step 1 which remains in full color:

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If we look in the Layers panel, we see what's happened. Photoshop added the Black & White adjustment layer above the original image on the Background layer (which means our original full color photo is still there, completely unharmed), and our selection outline was used to define the layer mask for the adjustment layer.

As we can see in the mask's preview thumbnail the mask is filled almost entirely with white except for the area directly above our main subject. White areas of the mask represent areas of the image being affected by the adjustment layer while black areas are not being effected which is why everything except for our main subject now appears in black and white

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