Photoshop Help

[Peking O]

Is it possible to combine colour and black and white effects in Photoshop? I've tried like buggery to do it but I can't figure out any way. Say, for example, you had a colour photograph of someone and you wanted to make it black and white but just keep one object in the picture in colour. Possible? Thank you in advance.

[mr rou-rou]

you could do two layers, mark out the colour part and delete the rest, then choose the duplicate layer udnerneath and greyscale it?

or get the same image and grey scale one, then overlay it over the colour and delete/cut around it,

ach, peice of cake, there's probably an easier way still but a potatoshop user will have to tell you, im a fireworks man myself

edit: in fireworks you select the area of the colour photo you want to keep and then invert the selection, and choose convert to greyscale

voila!

[sproggy]

He! He!

It's still making me laugh

[mook]

Do you know how to use layer masks?

First take your image and duplicate it onto another layer. Select your background layer and either Image>Adjustments>desaturate or press CTRL+SHIFT+U. Now select your background copy layer and click on the layer mask icon. Now just paint with a black brush to remove what you want from the layer. If you fuck up some how just press X on your keyboard to toggle between black and white. Painting with black on a layer mask removes, painting with white replaces.

Sorry if this post is a bit garbled, it is 2:40 am after all. :)

[ccab]

Horsegun once made a good tutorial on this subject, but it's long-disappeared, sadly.  The method he covered was to add a new layer, set its blending mode to color and then paint in white over any area you want in greyscale. You can produce a similar effect with the sponge tool set to desaturate at 100%.  Or select whatever you want to stay colour, invert the selection (ctrl+shift+i) and desaturate (ctrl+shift+u) or desaturate through the hue/satuartion dialog -(ctrl+u) by dragging the saturation slider left to -100.

But I'd say masks are the most versatile way of doing this. If you don't know what a mask is, think of it as colour-coding in black and white every pixel in an image.  The black areas are 'masked' - they're hidden, revealing the layer beneath. The pixels covered by white will stay visible. The intermediate greys are degrees of transparency. In Mook's example, the top layer has been given a mask which shows up as a black and white thumbnail linked to the layer thumbnail.

The reason masks are so useful is they can be altered at any time because no pixels are actually deleted. You can adjust & work on them whenever you like by clicking on their thumbnail in the layer's palette. You're simply controlling what's visible and what shows through. They may seem a difficult concept at first - but mess around with them & you'll soon work it out.

Try this as a demo -

Open an image. Add a layer & fill it with black. (All you can see is a sheet of black.)  Click on the add mask button (the mask thumbnail will appear on the top layer - as in mook's example).

Select the gradient tool, making sure its set at black to white, and drag a gradient from one side of the canvas to the other. You'll have a fade from the black through to the underlying image swept across the screen - alt click on the mask's thumbnail and you'll see the mask itself (this is normally hidden because it's far more practical to see the image you're building the mask for).

Experiment with the brush tool on the mask layer, switching between black and white & painting over areas.- switching colours & painting back over them - & you'll quickly see how it works.

[Cerys]

Hmmm, masks.  I never got around to trying them.  I suspect I'm making life difficult for myself, but I'm old and set in my ways now.

[Peking O]

Thanks for all your help. Perhaps this thread could be used for any other Photoshop advice/tips/problems?

[Cerys]

In which case a Sticky would be handy ... mods?  Hello?  Come on, be nice: you know it makes sense....

[mook]

Sticky would be good..

Mr. Splattermac, just before the old boards all went tits up you posted  a rake of links to free font sites, any chance you've still got the links knocking about somewhere? I've just got a new PC and the font cupboard is looking decidedly bare.

ta.

[mr rou-rou]

mook

http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm sideways scroller, full of fonts and image sites, and stuff

I don't really have any of the old links neither, I used the old CAB boards as a scrapbook , so it's gone now.

[ccab]

(Hopefully this is easier to look at)

[mook]

Here's an easy worth1000 tutorial it only takes a few minutes to work through it as well.

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=160978&page=1

As CCAB said, once you start using masks you really won't bother to fuck around with any other method.

Ta for the link Splat/rou you gent you.

[mr rou-rou]

pegs in spaaaaacccceeee

nice tutorial cocky old boy, you do know paint shop pro does it upon verbal command now, just say 'mong sesame'

Is anyone using the latest version of Macromedia Fireworks and is it any good compared to Fireworks MX which is my current graphics choice.