B/w with colored elements

[Essaarcee]

Folks,
I have seen many photos which are primarily in black n white but have one or few elements in it color. Like say a garden photo, but only 1 rose in centre which is in red, rest of the photo is blavk n white.

Have seen similar videos too.
How to achieve this? Is it completely post processing?

[BigFuzzy]

Yes, it's completely done in post processing...
well, actually, I think there are some point&shoot cameras that do it in-camera.

However.. it seems cool now, but it's really difficult to get right (I'm being nice because I hate the technique).. .just don't use this technique (which I call a gimmick) to try to save a bad image.. But, to be honest, I think we've all be through the phase when we thought it cool to take a self portrait and take out all color except our eyes..etc.

Lots of programs such as Photoshop Elements can do it, so can Gimp, which is free though has a steeper learning curve.

All in moderation!

[dlambert]

Al - I'd love your opinion on something just a little different than the "normal" colorization you're talking about. I've got a few photos where I started playing around with B&W conversion by reducing saturation, and ended up with some reds in the photo that sort of hung on after the other colors faded.

Do you find this any less "gimmicky"? It's a little more subtle, I think.

(more photos like this on my blog and gallery)

[thaoimage]

I have done this before and it's actually a simple process IMHO. If you using photoshop, all you have to do is create a layer on top of your color image and then create a layer mask. Use a black brush and go over the elements that you want in color and viola... you're good to go.

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by dlambert

Al - I'd love your opinion on something just a little different than the "normal" colorization you're talking about. I've got a few photos where I started playing around with B&W conversion by reducing saturation, and ended up with some reds in the photo that sort of hung on after the other colors faded.

Do you find this any less "gimmicky"? It's a little more subtle, I think.

(more photos like this on my blog and gallery)

Yeah, they're definitely less gimmicky. They're normal photos that have had the color de-saturated.. much better (in my humble opinion) than those "selective coloring" images. I've seen so very few that are nice.. but I'm also grumpy..