B&W photo with single colour highlight (how to?)

[pidsy]

morning all, just wondering how to do the above in PP?

such as this:



i know its a bit passe in terms of taste and overuse these days but its another technique i'd like to play with.

i use Light Room but i'm a bit rubbish with photoshop.

[rasputin]

April 14th 2010: Abandoned by Elad V., on Flickr
1) Take shot of the background using either black and white film or a black and white memory card
2) Take another shot of the coloured object using your normal memory card
3) Print both, making sure to use a B&W printer for the B&W photo. Colour printers don't have white ink and will mess it up
4) Cut out colour object using sharp scissors, sit on top of B&W background... Take a photo of the photos... Et voila!


Alternatively... Load the photo into two layers (if you don't have Photoshop, use GIMP - free and easy to use, pretty powerful). Set one layer to B&W. On the colour layer, select carefully around the object, invert the selection (so the background is selected), add a bit of feathering to the selection so there are no sharp edges, and delete the colour background. Quite simple when you get the hang of it

[DavidY]

Download the Google Nik Suite, this enables you to access Silver Efex Pro from lightroom. Do your initial processing in Lightroom, switch to Silver Efex Pro for the B/W conversion, and then using the control points in Silver Efex Pro, you can use Selective Colour (SC) to let through the original colour image around the control point.

[pidsy]

That's great.

Cheers gents.

[Simpo Two]

Simplest of all, make it monochrome to taste and use the History brush to return the colour where required.

[Gad-Westy]

Simpo Two said:

Simplest of all, make it monochrome to taste and use the History brush to return the colour where required.

Was going to suggest something along similar lines. In LR. Grab an adjustment brush. Turn saturation down as far as it will go. Big brush all over your image with no masking and then use the eraser brush with auto mask on the bit of colour you want to leave behind. 1 minute to get a rough and ready look. Maybe 5 minutes to get the edges looking neat.

[Zerotonine]

Simpo Two said:

Simplest of all, make it monochrome to taste and use the History brush to return the colour where required.

That was how I was taught and I was about to suggest until you did!

[pidsy]

thanks to all.

[justin220]

I do it slightly differently again, using the select tool, I draw around the object I want to remain in colour. Then select the inverse, then desaturate the selection

[ExPat2B]

ummm......you realise doing this is the editing equivalent of taking photos of cats and flowers right ? or putting massive vignettes and lacy borders on your pics ? Cliche, boring, over done almost never a good idea anymore ?

[Simpo Two]

ExPat2B said:

ummm......you realise doing this is the editing equivalent of taking photos of cats and flowers right ? or putting massive vignettes and lacy borders on your pics ? Cliche, boring, over done almost never a good idea anymore ?

Yebbut with respect he's doing it to please himself, not you.

Note that 'desaturate' is a poor way to make a colour image b/w, usually giving a flat grey mush. There are much better ways to do it PS.

[justin220]

Simpo Two said:

Note that 'desaturate' is a poor way to make a colour image b/w, usually giving a flat grey mush. There are much better ways to do it PS.

Interesting? What would be better?

I am still a novice

[pidsy]

ExPat2B said:

ummm......you realise doing this is the editing equivalent of taking photos of cats and flowers right ? or putting massive vignettes and lacy borders on your pics ? Cliche, boring, over done almost never a good idea anymore ?

Absolutely- as noted in my first post.

It's not something I've ever done before so fancied a play.

[Some Gump]

ExPat2B said:

ummm......you realise doing this is the editing equivalent of taking photos of cats and flowers right ? or putting massive vignettes and lacy borders on your pics ? Cliche, boring, over done almost never a good idea anymore ?

Virtually everything has been done before. Normally people do things because they're a good idea / interesting / fun. Any ways, it could be worse, he could be asking about HDR...

[Hub]

justin220 said:

Simpo Two said:

Note that 'desaturate' is a poor way to make a colour image b/w, usually giving a flat grey mush. There are much better ways to do it PS.

Interesting? What would be better?

I am still a novice

Yes, do tell - I normally just desaturate and alter contrast to suit for b&w.

[Simpo Two]

If you have Photoshop, have a play with Channel Mixer and Gradient Map (and maybe Levels afterwards). A treatment that works well with one image doesn't work with another, it's quite interesting!

[RobDickinson]

TBh to go B&W with photshop downloa dnik effex silver efex , its free now.

Or use the B&W adjustment layer and a preset or mix your own.

then use a layer mask on that and paint black where you want the colour to come through.


The desat and history brush method leaves you with a file you can never recover those changes from (aka destructive edit)

[Motorsport_is_Expensive]

A guy I used to work with paid near £1000 to have a 'photographer' take pictures of his daughter. My jaw hit the floor. I asked how on Earth they could justify that amount of money and he said 'well she did all this fancy stuff like highlight colour in a black and white photo...'

I whipped my iPhone out and, using a 59p app, did the exact same thing with a photo I took there and then.

His face... no amount of photoshop could put the colour back into that thing after seeing that. White.

[Simpo Two]

RobDickinson said:

The desat and history brush method leaves you with a file you can never recover those changes from (aka destructive edit)

Are you working in RAW? If not 'save as' does a good job of preserving the orginal

[Pixel Pusher]

RobDickinson said:

B&W adjustment layer and a preset or mix your own.

then use a layer mask on that and paint black where you want the colour to come through.

This man knows.