A couple of people have e-mailed me about the last picture I posted (“Pumpkin Shopping”), so I thought I would post a very brief “how-to” tutorial.
There are two different but similar effects that you can do with Photoshop. The first is “keeping part of a picture in color, and making the background black and white.” The second is “converting a picture to black and white and applying a color tint.” Although they may sound similar, the end results are quite different. I went with the first because I wanted the focus to be on the pumpkins.
The trick to this effect is separating the colored objects from the background. This can be done quickly in Photoshop with either the magic wand or the magnetic lasso selectors. I used the magnetic lasso — there were so many different shades of color in the pumpkins that I was unable to use the magic wand to select them. Once I had the pumpkins selected, I copied them to a new layer, switched back to the background layer, and applied “Desaturate” to the background. It was as simple as that.
If you’re looking for a smoother look, you can simply Desaturate the entire photograph, select the history brush (it’s right under the paintbrush in the tool bar). On any part you paint over, the color will be restored. It kind of feels like those old “painting with water” books I used to have as a kid.
Here is the original photograph:
While I liked the bright orange of the pumpkins, I felt like they were competing with Mason’s red shirt and the green plants in the background.
Using the technique described above, here was the picture I posted.
The other effect I mentioned (applying a color “tint” to a photograph) is even simpler. In PhotoShop, simply create a new blank layer, fill it with a color, and then adjust the opacity to your liking. Sometimes when I do this I’ll adjust the brightness and contrast of the original photograph to prevent it from looking washed out.
Like any special effect, a little goes a long way. No one wants to see an entire photo album done this way, but when used and applied sparingly, you can get some pretty neat results.