Photoshop Tutorial: Selective Coloring using a layer mask.

The technique of selective coloring is popular in wedding photography but can be used in many situations to help draw attention to certain objects/subjects in a photo. The following procedure is something that I have found to be efficient and effective, but there are a handful of other ways to accomplish the same effect.

Before:


After:


You'll need Photoshopto do this and a basic understanding of its tools.

Lets Begin...

Open up the image you want to manipulate.

I recommend editing at the largest size possible then down-sizing later, but you don't necessarily have to be working on a high res image.

First thing to do is duplicate your 'Background' layer. Press Command J (or CTRL J on your PC)... alternatively you can right-click on the BG layer and click Duplicate Layer.

You Layer's pallette should look something like this:




At this point we're ready to select the portion of the photo that will remain in color. Select the Magnetic Lasso Tool from the tools palette, location indicated below.



Once you've got the Lasso tool selected check the tool's settings, displayed below'



The settings I used seem to be a happy median but adjust the 'Contrast' and 'Frequency' numbers as you see fit. Basically what the Magnetic Lasso does is samples the area you're outlining and automatically snaps to the main subject based on different contrast in the surrounding pixels. Your initial outline should be fairly clean but it will take some fine tuning.

On your TOP layer, Loosely go around the subject that will stay in color with the Magnetic lasso. Once you've got your basic Selection: (shown above) ....You can refine it a bit. To do so, get out the regular Lasso or Poly-Lasso(or keep the mag-lasso). If there is an area that you want to ADD to your selection hold the SHIFT key and outline that area. If there is an area you do not want in your selection hold the ALT/OPTION key and select the undesired area and it will be removed.

Spending a little extra time on getting the selection clean makes a big difference but it doesnt need to be perfect.

With the Subject selected, Save your selection so you can get it back easily incase you make a mistake. To do this, go to Select > Save Selection ... Pictured below:



The name is whatever you want it to be.

Press Command D (CTRL D for PC) to deslect your selection.

Now you can Desaturate your top layer. With top layer selected(probably called Background copy or Layer 1) Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate ( I prefer to use the channel mixer and if you've got CS3 use the "Black & White" feature instead of desat.)

Now we can add a layer mask. With your top layer active, click the Add Layer Mask button, shown below:



(You'll see a little white box come up on your top layer in the pallete, thats your "mask".)

Now go to your Channel's Pallete. Its location varies depending on your PS version but if you dont see it go to Window > Channels.

You should see your saved selection from earlier with whatever name you gave it, shown below:



While holding the Command(CTRL for PC) key click the little thumbnail of your outline. This will make your selection active again.

Now go back to your layers pallette, make sure your top layer is active and click on the white box in your top layer pallete. This makes the mask active. Shown below:



Press D on your keyboard to get the default Black and White colors active in your colors pallete, then press X on your keyboard to make sure that your foreground color pallete is WHITE. Now hit B on your keyboard or select your brush from your tools. Size it accordingly and begin painting within your selection. You should see the bottom layer start to come through. White REVALS the bottom layer and paint black HIDES the bottom layer. So if you accidently bring too much back from your bottom layer, simply switch to black and paint the top layer back in.

Painting mask in progress:



If you want the background of the picture to be blurred, select your bottom layer and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.... but becareful, too much blur action looks pretty corny.

Here's the selective color with a slight BG blur:



Any questions or concerns feel free to contact me!