Traffic Light

[Jiffers]

I love this effect. My mom liked to paint black and white prints for this effect, so I thought "hmmm, I bet I could do that in ps", and ran into the same problem as Looney, where I wanted to do selective coloring with everything... But eventually I ran out of "workable" photos. Anyway, here's one of my favs that I did a few years ago.

[richerimage]

Isn't it great how something as boring and every-day as a traffic-light can make such a great image.

Very nice post-production work and it just goes to show that less is more in so many cases.

Great pic!

[Ezra]

Originally Posted by russcott2002

I will have to try another and do something different with the magic wand as I found selecting a bit hard.

The easiest way to do this and personally I like the effect a little better is to:

1.Duplicate the original layer in Photoshop and then lock the original layer.
2. The duplicate layer can then be turned to a B&W layer by using:
Layer adjustments> Hue and Saturation. This will only change the duplicated layer into the B&W and leave the original locked layer in it's color mode.
3. On the duplicate layer just use the eraser tool set to airbrush mode with a low opacity. You will also want to use a soft edged eraser to create a buffer beween the color image and the B&W. I hard edge which is what you get with the magic wand tool doesn't get it quite right for me.

Hope this helps.