2 Responses to “how do i make a picture black and white but some certain things are colored?”

1. Barkley Hound on Jul 24th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

   This is what I would do. Start with a color picture. Create a black and white copy using photoshop. Now go back the color version and erase everything that is to be black and white, just leaving the color. Now overlay the color picture over the black and white. For exact details I can’t assist.
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2. Mr. Knowitall on Jul 25th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

   It’s amazing how often this question comes up! But in Photoshop it’s very easy to do.

   First you take the lasso tool and draw around the part you want to stay in color. You don’t have to get the exact outline but draw -around- it, making sure you get all of it. If you want several things to be in color, draw around all of them (they can be separate or together).

   Now do a ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ from the edit menu. The ’selection’ will not be copied into its own layer.

   Now make the ‘background’ layer active. Convert it to black and white. Maybe take a minute to readjust its brightness/contrast and levels.

   Now go back to the ‘foreground’ layer. Use the eraser tool to trim the area you want. This is a little fussy, to get the exact outline, but you can zoom way in and make the eraser really small and get right down to the exact pixels you want.

   Now ‘flatten’ the image by merging the layers and -voila-! You have it.

   If this isn’t clear, write me and I’ll give you more details.

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