Selective Color

Most of us have changed the hue/saturation of a picture, but have you ever wished you could edit just one color in your photo?

Swimming with dolphins last year in Bali was an incredible experience, but it was sad to see the murky yellowish pool water they were kept in so I decided to re-create the memory a bit by adjusting the water color to a cleaner, more refreshing hue.

Here's another awesome step-by-step tutorial courtesy of the very talented Amanda Taylor.

A touch of color...

I like to use this effect on photos that have fun dramatic colors.

Ok, so I LOVE this first picture of Eric in the man-pyramid. I couldn't help but bring extra attention to those little red shorts. (Don't worry, I plan to scrapbook the full-color shot too...it would be a shame to let that beautiful blue sky go to waste.)

I think, rather than try and explain the method myself, I'll just re-direct you to a couple of sites that explain it far better than I can...
Taylormade Designs
Digital Photography Schools

Not like I needed to draw any extra attention to their bright red hair, but I couldn't resist!

As a sidenote, there are actually several ways to accomplish this effect. In fact, I did it 2 different ways just in this post, and neither of them are the same methods used in the tutorial links provided. For the Ty and Tiff shot, I put a layer mask on the BW layer and just erased the areas where I wanted the color to show through. (Layer masks are probably the best option because they allow you to correct your mistakes...Maybe I'll do a later tutorial demonstrating what I mean). And for the pyramid shot, I started with the mask (demonstrated above), but ended up going back to the old-fashioned polygonal lasso tool. It took longer, but I needed it to be more precise (and I was having a hard time coloring (erasing) inside the lines. I would say 9x out of 10, however, that the mask is the better, more forgiving option.