Selective Recolouring Technique
Kathy Thompson is back again with us today to show us a wonderful photo technique which I know you are all going to try out.
Here's Kathy with her photo editing trick to share with us:
Hi again!
The technique I am going to share with you today is called selective recolouring, and that’s just a fancy term for converting a photo to black and white, but having one or two elements left in colour. Fun stuff!
The directions I am going to provide are for using Adobe Photoshop Elements but you can probably replicate this technique with just about any photo-editing software.
I started with this photo – I am continuously amazed at the colours that my garden bursts with, summer after summer. This summer, although it got off to a slow start!!! was no different:
I wanted to focus on that beautiful tulip in the front, so this is what I wound up with:
Ready to try this fun and quick technique?!
Here you go:
1. Open your photo
2. Make a copy of your photo immediately (this is just a really good habit to get into, never work on your original). To do this, right click on your photo thumbnail in the photo bin (bottom section of your screen)>duplicate>OK. You can now close your original and work on your copy.
3. Crop your photo to the size you want
4. On the layers palette, click on create adjustment layer icon (it’s half black and half white)
5. Select hue/saturation from the menu
6. Slide saturation slider all the way to the left to turn your photo to black and white, click OK.
7. Select the brush tool
8. Make sure your colours are set to their default of black on the top and white on the bottom by typing “D” for default
9. Select a hard edged brush at approximately 9px
10. Zoom right in on your subject.
11. Begin ‘painting’ over the item you want to bring the colour back to. Use your [ ] keys to make your brush larger or smaller as needed.
12. If you colour outside of your item, just type “X” to switch your default colours to white on top, correct your error, and switch your top colour back to black
13. Flatten layers and save your photo!
Article by: Kathy Thompson
