Ask Dr. Bob - Selective Colour / Color - Schindler look

Hello, and welcome to another addition of Ask Dr.Bob.

Jennifer from Wyoming asks, "Dr. Bob, what is this black bean in my can of beans?", well Jennifer, that's easy, its the queen bean..

So anyway, I've been asked recently about Selective colouring and what is the best way to do this in Photoshop?
The quickest way that I know is to use an Adjustment Layer.

Ok here we have a photo supplied by Kim Shaw who would like the flowers and leaves in colour but the rest of the image in Black and White.

The in camera metering has been fooled by the light cake, so we'll make a few adjustments to the exposure and colour balance before going any further.




So now we have a good picture to work from, lets get started. First in the layers palette go to the adjustment layer icon and select Black and White Adjustment Layer (B+W adjustment layer is CS3 only - if you have an earlier edition of Photoshop, then the Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer will do the same thing)


Now grab the Brush tool (i've used a 50px brush to begin filling the main body of the flowers). Make sure that you have black as your foreground colour and start painting over the flowers. You'll see that the black is relieving the colour under the Adjustment Layer (how cool is that!).


Don't worry if you paint outside the lines, you can just grab a smaller brush and flipping the foreground/background colours you can paint out the colour.




Using a mouse this can be tricky (but faster than other methods) to do, I highly recommend purchasing a Wacom Tablet. I've been using one for the past 15 years and wouldn't be without one!

After a few minutes you'll see brilliant results that will blow your mind, why weren't you doing it this way before?!


In less than 15 minutes you've got a finished product!


So Kim there we have it, selective colouring made easy.. No more duplicating, desaturating and using the eraser tool for you!

Please remember, this is a dated effect, you will be judged if you use it!

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