Tutorial 1: Selective Color on your Photos

This tutorial is for making a photo black and white with little bits of color showing through. Remember to work on a COPY of your photo in case you want to use the original again.

1. Open your color photo and duplicate the layer (Right click on the layer in the layers palette and choose duplicate, or press Ctrl-J with the layer selected.)

2. Choose the top layer. We need to remove the color. There are MANY ways to do this, and this is just ONE option! (Maybe that can be whole other tutorial!)
PHOTOSHOP: Choose Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
PS ELEMENTS: Choose Enhance > Adjust Color > Remove Color

3. Now we need to choose the areas where the color will show through. Everyone can use the Elements method, but if you have Photoshop you can also use another, less destructive, method.

PHOTOSHOP: With the top layer selected, click on the layer mask button (in the layers pallette, the button that lookd like a circle inside of a square). This will create a layer mask for this layer. Make sure the layer mask is selected (look for the outline around the thumbnail), and fill the mask with black - your top layer will SEEM to disapper. DONT WORRY!! Now, choose your brush tool and make sure you are painting with white. With the layer mask still selected, paint where you want the black and white to show up again. If you make a mistake, just paint with a black brush. The fantastic thing about this method is the flexibility!! (TIP: Experiment with a GREY brush!!)

PS ELEMENTS: This method is easier, but not as flexible as the photoshop method above. Simply choose your eraser tool and erase the black and white areas that you want to be color! Your color layer will now show through! (See also the PS Elements workaround below for yet another method!).

** TIP: Y ou can always reverse the layers (ie. put the color layer on top and erase it to show the b/w layer).

PS Elements 'workaround'
Because Elements does not have layer masks, you dont have the flexibility of a layer mask without some extra work! But if you want to try, here is what you can do. (This will give you the ability to show/erase/show/erase the visible part of your color photo without "losing" any of the actual photo.

• start the same, with your two photo layers, 1 color, 1 BW.
• create a new layer IN BETWEEN them, then hide your top layer
• on the new blank layer, get out your paintbrush and paint (in general) where you want the top layer to show. (this might look/sound weird, but just stick with me here). It doesnt matter what color you use.
  
• make the top layer visible again, select it, and push Ctrl-G to Group the layer with the brushed layer below it.
  
• you can now select the brushed layer again, and continue to use the brush and eraser on it to get it JUST RIGHT!!!

So that is tutorial #1! If you have any comments or questions, please leave me a note! :)