I see a few photographs on here treated in Photoshop to be part B&W, part Color. For the life of me I can't remember how to do that. Would like to apply the treatment to some of my photos. Can some one point me in a right direction?

 

• load your photo
• copy the layer
• convert the bottom layer to B&W
• trace around the subject you want to keep in color on the color layer and delete the stuff you don't want to keep on the color layer.

That's the basics of the way I'd do it. I recall that we had a discussion on this a while back and there were several different approaches that would get you there.

 

That's the same way I do it. If you want it to be a hard line between the B&W and Color... just select half (or whatever about) and clear it from the top layer. Have fun.

 

Sometimes I find the color in the color layer can look too intense relative to the black and white part of the image. An easy way to reduce the color intensity (giving a look closer to a hand dyed black and white) is to reduce the opacity of the color layer.

Have fun!

 

Here is where I am having a problem. When converting to greyscale, it changes both layers. What am I missing?

 

Don't convert the entire image to greyscale. Just desaturate the one layer you want b&w. Select a layer (one of the two identical color layers you've created) then click on layer, image, adjust, desaturate. On the color layer (which should end up on top) I recommend using a mask so you can make fine adjustments w/o actually deleting anything.:smile:

 

You can also use the "remove color" option.

 

Thanks guys,

Got it. You and Google helped. Unfortunatly non of my current pics warrant the treatment. I guess it's time to go out and take some more pics.

 

One more way to do it....

Use the history brush. Take a snapshot while the image is in color and select that as the source for the history brush. Then, convert to b&W and paint away with the history brush. Works really well if you have a tablet. With a mouse, it's a bit more tedious.

Derek