Selective Colorization

Highlighting with hues...

Have you ever seen those photos where everything is black and white, except for one bright element which is full color and stands out firmly?

More to the point, have you ever wanted to make one? This tutorial explains a simple way to make selective color images.

Firstly, what photos look good using this effect? Photos containing one or two small, but very brightly colored elements, lend themselves well to this style. An additional step is suggested at the end for photos that lack this characteristic, but that you still want to selectively colorize.

Here is an example of a photo that should work well. The small but vivid glass I was holding back on my 18th birthday will be the object that we leave in color.

Turning To Black and White

Let's get started. The first job is to make the black and white copy of the image.

Open your image and take a look at the layers palette. If it's a standard image, there will be a single layer there called the background layer.

Right click the layer and select 'Duplicate Layer' to make an identical copy of the layer. Type in a name, such as 'B and W', and click Ok.

You'll see that the copied layer appears in the layer palette. Make sure it's selected before continuing.

Now we want to turn this duplicate layer to black and white. There are several ways to do this. My favourite is this:

Try selecting 'Enhance - Convert to Black and White' from the menu. In the dialog that appears, select a style in step 1. Don't pay too much attention to the names, just pick an option that you think makes your image look good.

You can toggle and adjust all you like here, until you are perfectly happy with your image.

If you don't have the 'Convert to Black and White' option available, you can simply desaturate the layer. This is not difficult, but can lead to a slightly blue-gray tinge to the image, so the first method is preferable.

To desaturate the layer, select 'Enhance - Adjust Color - Adjust Hue/Saturation'. Drag the saturation slider all the way over to the left, and then click Ok.

Restoring Some Color

Now we have both a color image and a black and white image, we want to add some color back in.

Hide the black and white layer for the moment, and select the color layer. Now, we need to select the area of the image that should turn back to color. There are many ways to do this, and different ways will suit different objects.

If the object you want to appear in color has sharp edges, often the Magnetic Lasso Tool is a great way to grab those edges quickly, to create a pretty good selection.

You'll want to make the selection quite precise for this, so here's a good way to check it looks how you want it to:

Select the Selection Brush Tool, and change the 'Mode' option to 'Mask'. Now the image will appear tinted red, apart from the areas in your selection.

Now not only can you see exactly what the selection looks like, you can neaten it up using a hard or a soft brush as appropriate. Here's an example of what this process will look like:

Once you've perfected your selection, select the black and white layer. Now we simply cut the selection out of this layer, and paste it straight back into the document, so we've got it stored for later if we need it.

You can do this by using the 'Edit - Cut' and 'Edit - Paste' menu commands, or using the 'Ctrl + X', 'Ctrl + V' shortcut keys.

Now, simply hide the 'cut out' layer by clicking on the eye symbol next to the layer thumbnail, and you are left with your black and white image with the colored portion:

Difficult Images

In some images, the desired qualities are just not there. In this image for example, the object (the diving person) is large not small, has blurred edges not sharp edges, and is not particularly brightly colored.

Instead of using black and white for the background, and the original color for the object, I have used two contrasting colors for the object and background.

To do this, follow the technique to achieve the first effect. Then select the object layer and pick 'Enhance - Adjust Color - Adjust Hue/Saturation'. Check the 'Colorize' tick box and adjust the sliders to achieve a color and shade you like.

Now repeat this action for the black and white layer. Again tick the 'colorize' check box, and adjust the sliders until the image looks good.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about this technique. Don't forget to check out my Free Monthly Newsletter to get new articles delivered straight to your inbox!

Kind Regards

Robert Redwood Robert Redwood - Bio
Your FREE guide to Photoshop Elements!
Get your free newsletter here!

A page about Selective Colorization