Effect of removing colour - Tulips

[peeveyr]

I took this shot on Pearl Street, Boulder, CO. Removing all of the green and green-like shades gave a pretty pleasing effect (I think!)

[wyndhydra]

peeveyr,
I love the shot. Very cool idea and execution. The tinges of green in the back have me begging for more in the front, which you deny from me (I like that). My only comment might be that some of the yellows immediately behind tulip are a bit distracting. Don't know if you want to do something with that or not. Either way I like it. Great job!

[bigdoggold]

Looks great...very nice Post work

[peeveyr]

Here's a couple more. I tried reducing the intensity of the yellow, but not sure if it's an improvement. I like the other one - the effect of the high, even unnatural, colour contrast gives it a nice 'pop'

Canon Powershot SD800, 1/20 sec, f/5.6 (handheld) modified on PS Elements 5

[clockdoc]

Very nice effect. Can you share your technique with this process?

[peeveyr]

I did all the work in full edit on PS Elements 5. Similar approach for both. For the first, used the magic selection brush on the green leaves, then hit Select -> grow & Select -> similar multiple times until the selection was sufficiently expanded. Then in the could adjust menu reduced saturation to the desired level. the red/white flower was as shown in the photo.

For the second - same approach, but after reducing the saturation for the green I selected the red of the flowers and adjusted hue and saturation to give the flowers the 'pop'.

By the way, I found something new which I hadn't known before (maybe old news to others), but if you hold the shift key with the magic selection brush you can select different colour ranges simultaneously and then grow them in parallel - pretty handy!

[clockdoc]

Thanks for the explanation. I am always interested in how folks achieve their end result. Keep at it! You did well on the flower shots. Was PS Elements your very first version or did you work through earlier versions? I am considering getting Ver. 5 for a relative who is very interested in post production work.

[peeveyr]

I went straight to v. 5. However, thus far I am using a training book (Deke) that's pretty useful. It was writen for v. 3, and I have not found any discrepanices or unexplained functions

Rick

[clockdoc]

Hi Rick,
Thanks for your input on Elements V.5.