Learning Matters
Selective Coloring
By Michelle Bradshaw
Have you ever been in awe of those colorful pages where the kit is so outstanding yet you do not feel your photos work? Have you ever been intrigued to see just a pop of color and wonder how it happened? Yes, as always many ways to get creative with Adobe products.
Here is a favorite [and easy ] method of mine. All screen shots in Photoshop elements.
Step 1- duplicate the photo layer with ctrl/cmd [on mac] + j
Step 2- click on the adjustment layer icon [black/white circle] in the layers palette. When the pop up box opens, select Hue/ Saturation or chose Black and White .
Step 3- Move the Saturation indicator all the way to the left.
If selecting black and white instead, the individual colors may be adjusted with personal choice. See screen shot 3a.
Step 4- Clip to the layer below. From the menu: Layer >group with previous, or create clipping mask. The keyboard shortcuts are ctrl/cmd +g for Photoshop Elements or Ctrl/cmd+ alt/opt+g on a mac. One other option is to hover the mouse in the layers palette between the 2 layers holding down the alt/option key and click the divide between the layers. The clipping mask will then only effect the layer it is clipped to.
Step 5- With the mask box active and the color picker at the default black and white, click the brush tool and simply brush over the part where you wish to have the color show through from the layer below. The black on the foreground color picker, hides the brushing. If you brush away more than you wish, simply switch the color picker and have white as the foreground color [keyboard shortcut 'x' or click the middle of the double arrow]. If white is the foreground color, the brush will replace what was there before.
And here is the finished product.
I like this method instead of using the eraser as it is move mistake friendly.
Happy Scrapping
Michelle
