How to: Photo Editing - B&W w/Color Accents

I want to show you how easy it is to create a very striking visual effect. I'm sure we have all seen some black & white photos with color accents. This guide will step you through creating one of your own. Please note that the steps described below relate to Photoshop CS2. I am sure that other similar programs will have like abilities.

Step 1: Select a photo
This effect will generate the best effect when applied to an object that has a striking color. My personal favorite is red. So I picked an image of one of the Canal St. Trolleys.


Step 2: Create an adjustment layer
We need to add a B&W layer ontop of the color layer. We could simply save a copy of the image as grayscale and just overlay it, but we loose the ability to undo our mistakes (everyone makes mistakes doing this!). So we are going to create an adjustment layer, specifically a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.


Step 3: Adjust the Saturation level
The saturation level contols how much "color" is applied to the image. Setting this value to its lowest point will cause the image to be grayscale.


Step 4: Modify the Mask
If we look at the layer details of the new adjustment layer we just made we should see two boxes.


The first box contains the Hue/Saturation levels and the second is the layer mask. Many of you may not be familiar with adjustment layers and masks so here is the skinny. Photoshop uses a grayscale to determine the intensity of the mask. White means that the mask is applied 100% and Black 0%. Since our image mask is completly white the image appears completly B&W. In order to "paint" our color back in we will apply black to the mask.


So you can see our mask shows a black rectangle, but our image shows a colorized rectangle. Now that we understand the basics of masks lets cover up that black rectangle with some white to get back to the beginning.

Step 5: Pull out our Color
Normally a photo like this will either emphasize a color or an object. In our case I am going to emphasize the trolley by way of the color red. I could just paint black over all areas that are red, but I will go another route. Photoshop will allow us to select a range of colors. The option is found in the Select menu, under "Color Range...". Before we use this tool, we need to hide our adjustment layer, so we can see the original. Now that the original layer is visible, click on "Color Range...". Now use the dropper to select the color you want to show. You will see another mask in the Preview Window; most likely this isn't exactly what you wanted. The "Fuzziness" slider will increase the range of colors selected. Keep sliding until you have found what you want. In this case we are going to slide it all the way over.

(Click OK)

Step 6: Colorize
Now that we have selected the color range we should see a selection appear on our original image.

All we have to do now is turn back on the adjustment layer. Now the same selection should be over that layer. Make sure your mask is selected and begin to "paint" inside the selection. You can be as messy as you like the selection will not let you stray outside. Once finished you can clear the selection and view your final result

Step 7: Finished!


Conclusion:
Like I said this was an easy effect to make happen. However, not all of us have access to a program like Photoshop. Just to prove that you don't need it I did the following image in The Gimp (on Fedora). The start image wasn't as pretty, but you get the idea.





This was the very first time I used The Gimp, so I was not familiar with the usage. This was just to prove (to myself) that it is possible.

I am getting some positive feedback on this guide, thanks. I would be really cool to see the images that are made. I love seeing how the creative process works for different people.

Has anybody done any of these? Still waiting for someone else to post one. There are a ton of people here more artistic than me, lets see what you can do!