Lost Shoe - Photo Tip

Tiny shoe left on the park bench for its owner to claim.

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A comment from a recent post asked how to get an effect like the one above where only certain parts of the photo are in color and the rest is black and white.

Answer: I painted the park bench grey.

No, it's Photoshop. There are many ways to get this effect. Here's just a couple.

PHOTOSHOP TIP
BLACK AND WHITE IMAGE WITH COLOR HIGHLIGHTS

METHOD 1: The more common , but more painstaking, work flow:

You could select the shoe using the magic wand tool or the magnetic lasso. Then feather the selection by a couple pixels. Then duplicate the shoe selection by jumping it to a new layer (Ctrl+J). Now make the layer underneath black and white. Tada!

METHOD 2: Here's a faster, easier way:

The original color of the park bench was a muted green, so the only colors in the photo are really pinks and greens. All I needed to do was create a new Hue/Saturation Layer, then desaturate all of the yellows, greens, and blues. All that's left are beautiful pinks (magentas). No selections necessary!

Even if you don't have Photoshop, most photo editing software mid-level and above will have adjustments for hue and saturation. Try it out and share your results!

[Is this tip helpful? Let me know! What else do you want to know?]

Call for Questions

Seems to be a lot of you out there who are purchasing some nice digital cameras or who have a growing interest in photography. I'm kickin' around the idea of offering a weekly photography tip or tutorial as part of this blog.

So whaddaya wanna know? I'll see what I can do to share what I've learned and point you to resources that I've found helpful. So toss me your questions and let's get started!