First of all, I was planning on posting this tutorial 6 months ago but due to my crazy life and my recent relocation to Hell I'm just now getting around to it So here it is!

Have you ever seen one of those black and white pictures that has a single object in color? Well, I'm gonna show you how to do that in 3 EXTREMELY easy steps!

I used this effect on a promo pic for my fiance's little brother Sean's band, There's Always Forever. However, I went with more of a ghetto duotone version instead of black and white, but it's all the same. Here is my version (click to enlarge)



The effect is much more dramatic with a black and white photo. Okay, now onto the actual tutorial! And fair warning, I'm extremely tired and I'm kinda rushing through the example pics... they took me 15 seconds Lol I'm sure yours will come out much nicer I'll be using this picture:



1. Duplicate your image layer
Press Ctrl+J

2. Desaturate the top layer
a. Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
-OR-
b. Press Ctrl+U to make the "black&white" a uniform color

3. Use the eraser tool, remove the portion(s) of the picture that you would like to be in color.



Optionally, you can fill in the areas you erased with white on a new layer and set the opacity to around 7-10% for a softer look.



Voila! Enjoy

This post has been edited by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG: Dec 29 2005, 10:45 AM

A real cool trick I must say. Always wondered how to do that. When you have more time on your hand, can you please get back to this and add some more illustrations and elaborate on the steps a little more please ? That'd really help n00bs like me get going perfectly

Thanks,
m^e

Yay, I was hoping someone would find this interesting Lol Ya know, m^e, I would love to elaborate on the steps, but I wouldn't know what to say! Really, all it is is putting a black and white version of the picture on top of the colored one, so when you erase parts of the desaturated layer, the color shows through.

How about if I added graphical examples of the icons for the tools used, like you see on most PS tutorial sites?

YEaaay that'd be cool Just make a post with some sorta markers as to where those graphics should go - and I'll move them back to your first post - making one long and complete tutorial.

Okie dokes! I'll get to it in an hour or two... I have about... 376 emails to go through. Stupid PTR site addiction :/