Grey Background but coloured object

Hi

I would ideally like to take the example here
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=59135438&pho to_id=1725962384

and make the object its "natural" colouring, but would like the background in black and white, is this possible?

Thanks

On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 03:43:32 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
....

I would ideally like to take the example here
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=59135438&pho to_id=1725962384
and make the object its "natural" colouring, but would like the background in black and white, is this possible?

Yes - the term for this is "color popping". In this case it would done by masking out the horse, and moving the saturation slider all the way to the left. Then paint black on the parts of the mask where you want to retain color.

There are a variety of ways you can let Photoshop do some of the work creating the mask. One is to dupe the image, convert to Lab, and use a contrast enhanced copy of the a channel as your mask. Alt click on the layer mask to paste the a channel.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com

wrote:

Hi

I would ideally like to take the example here
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=59135438&pho to_id=1725962384
and make the object its "natural" colouring, but would like the background in black and white, is this possible?

Thanks

Do you mean this sort of thing?
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/408856054
There's literally dozens of different ways you can do it.

Mike has (as usual) offered up an excellent way of doing it, but I'm willing to bet you get at least half a dozen replies all telling you how they would have done it - each equally valid and usefull.

Here's my contribution.

Make a duplicate layer, so you have two identical layers one on top of the other.
Now, select the top one and go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Now take your eraser tool, set it to a reasonable size with a slightly soft edge (but not too soft) and simply erase out the donkey from that top layer. Finally, flatten the image and save.

There are other methods that involve using the history brush, or else using the channel mixer to achieve a better grayscale mix. But I'm just trying to keep my example as simple as possible.

On 3 Aug, 13:12, "\(used to be\) Fat Sam"
wrote:

wrote:

Hi

I would ideally like to take the example here
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=59135438&pho to_id=1725962384

and make the object its "natural" colouring, but would like the background in black and white, is this possible?

Thanks

Do you mean this sort of thing?http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/408856054 There's literally dozens of different ways you can do it.
Mike has (as usual) offered up an excellent way of doing it, but I'm willing to bet you get at least half a dozen replies all telling you how they would have done it - each equally valid and usefull.

Here's my contribution.

Make a duplicate layer, so you have two identical layers one on top of the other.
Now, select the top one and go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Now take your eraser tool, set it to a reasonable size with a slightly soft edge (but not too soft) and simply erase out the donkey from that top layer. Finally, flatten the image and save.

There are other methods that involve using the history brush, or else using the channel mixer to achieve a better grayscale mix. But I'm just trying to keep my example as simple as possible.

Thats it, thats how I want it to look, will have a go

On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:12:01 +0100, "\(used to be\) Fat Sam" scribbled:

wrote:

Hi

I would ideally like to take the example here
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=59135438&pho to_id=1725962384
and make the object its "natural" colouring, but would like the background in black and white, is this possible?

Thanks

Do you mean this sort of thing?
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/408856054
There's literally dozens of different ways you can do it.
Mike has (as usual) offered up an excellent way of doing it, but I'm willing to bet you get at least half a dozen replies all telling you how they would have done it - each equally valid and usefull.

Here's my contribution.

Make a duplicate layer, so you have two identical layers one on top of the other.
Now, select the top one and go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Now take your eraser tool, set it to a reasonable size with a slightly soft edge (but not too soft) and simply erase out the donkey from that top layer.

Using a layer mask, something so invaluable no Photoshop user should not have the ability, would be far better than using the erase tool. Mistakes are far easier to clean up especially if they're found after considerable work is done.

Finally, flatten the image and save.

An utterly, completely unnecessary step that denies you the ability to go back and change things. Why give such horrid advice? Flattening is never necessary. Save as, Save for web and always keep a fully layered working copy.

There are other methods that involve using the history brush, or else using the channel mixer to achieve a better grayscale mix. But I'm just trying to keep my example as simple as possible.

On 4 Aug, 09:24, Voivod wrote:

On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:12:01 +0100, "\(used to be\) Fat Sam" scribbled:

wrote:

Hi

I would ideally like to take the example here
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=59135438&pho to_id=1725962384

and make the object its "natural" colouring, but would like the background in black and white, is this possible?

Thanks

Do you mean this sort of thing?
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/408856054
There's literally dozens of different ways you can do it.

Mike has (as usual) offered up an excellent way of doing it, but I'm willing to bet you get at least half a dozen replies all telling you how they would have done it - each equally valid and usefull.

Here's my contribution.

Make a duplicate layer, so you have two identical layers one on top of the other.
Now, select the top one and go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Now take your eraser tool, set it to a reasonable size with a slightly soft edge (but not too soft) and simply erase out the donkey from that top layer.

Using a layer mask, something so invaluable no Photoshop user should not have the ability, would be far better than using the erase tool. Mistakes are far easier to clean up especially if they're found after considerable work is done.

Finally, flatten the image and save.

An utterly, completely unnecessary step that denies you the ability to go back and change things. Why give such horrid advice? Flattening is never necessary. Save as, Save for web and always keep a fully layered working copy.

There are other methods that involve using the history brush, or else using the channel mixer to achieve a better grayscale mix. But I'm just trying to keep my example as simple as possible.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

So is ther a difference between a layer and a layer mask or are they one and the same?

On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 09:00:39 -0700 (PDT), ""
wrote:

On 4 Aug, 09:24, Voivod wrote:

On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:12:01 +0100, "\(used to be\) Fat Sam" scribbled:

wrote:

Hi

I would ideally like to take the example here
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=59135438&pho to_id=1725962384

and make the object its "natural" colouring, but would like the background in black and white, is this possible?

Thanks

Do you mean this sort of thing?
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/408856054
There's literally dozens of different ways you can do it.

Mike has (as usual) offered up an excellent way of doing it, but I'm willing to bet you get at least half a dozen replies all telling you how they would have done it - each equally valid and usefull.

Here's my contribution.

Make a duplicate layer, so you have two identical layers one on top of the other.
Now, select the top one and go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Now take your eraser tool, set it to a reasonable size with a slightly soft edge (but not too soft) and simply erase out the donkey from that top layer.

Using a layer mask, something so invaluable no Photoshop user should not have the ability, would be far better than using the erase tool. Mistakes are far easier to clean up especially if they're found after considerable work is done.

Finally, flatten the image and save.

An utterly, completely unnecessary step that denies you the ability to go back and change things. Why give such horrid advice? Flattening is never necessary. Save as, Save for web and always keep a fully layered working copy.

There are other methods that involve using the history brush, or else using the channel mixer to achieve a better grayscale mix. But I'm just trying to keep my example as simple as possible.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

So is ther a difference between a layer and a layer mask or are they one and the same?

Both are layers, but a layer mask is a type of layer that allows editing of the layer with the ability to reverse the editing by changing the foreground color between black and white.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

tony cooper wrote:

<snip>

So is ther a difference between a layer and a layer mask or are they one and the same?

Both are layers, but a layer mask is a type of layer that allows editing of the layer with the ability to reverse the editing by changing the foreground color between black and white.

Mixing between Color & B&W is one of the trick I have been using on many wedding photo for ages. And I agree with you that the combination of Layer & Mask is a sweet way for this trick.

And I have been trying to get more Photoshop user to learn to take advantage of Layer and Masking, but it seems like some doesn't understand the benefit of Masking. Or everytime they see the word "MASKING" they are thinking of making a selection of some object, when Masking is much more flexible than selecting some specific subject.

And I use Mask on most of the photo.

In article ,
tony cooper wrote:

Both are layers, but a layer mask is a type of layer that allows editing of the layer with the ability to reverse the editing by changing the foreground color between black and white.

That's not quite true.

A layer mask is a way to conceal parts of a layer by making those parts invisible. For example, you can create a layer, put a round layer mask on it, and only the part of the layer contained inside the round layer mask will be visible.

It does not allow you to undo other kinds of changes, such as changes to the color balance of the layer. All it lets you do is go back later and unhide the parts you had hidden, or hide the parts you had showing.

Effectively, any time you want to erase part of a layer, always use a layer mask; never use the eraser. Thats what the mask does; erases part of the layer, in a way that lets you bring it back if you change your mind.

--
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

On Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:35:36 -0400, tacit wrote:

In article ,
tony cooper wrote:

Both are layers, but a layer mask is a type of layer that allows editing of the layer with the ability to reverse the editing by changing the foreground color between black and white.

That's not quite true.

A layer mask is a way to conceal parts of a layer by making those parts invisible. For example, you can create a layer, put a round layer mask on it, and only the part of the layer contained inside the round layer mask will be visible.

It does not allow you to undo other kinds of changes, such as changes to the color balance of the layer. All it lets you do is go back later and unhide the parts you had hidden, or hide the parts you had showing.
Effectively, any time you want to erase part of a layer, always use a layer mask; never use the eraser. Thats what the mask does; erases part of the layer, in a way that lets you bring it back if you change your mind.

You usually provide very good, very detailed, answers. Sometimes, though, there's a time to provide a basic answer that doesn't go into all the possibilities. When the question is: "So is there a difference between a layer and a layer mask or are they one and the same?", you know you have poster who isn't ready to deal with all of the complexities of a subject like Layer Masks.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 09:00:39 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

So is ther a difference between a layer and a layer mask or are they one and the same?

A layer mask is an optional component of a layer, normally used to hide part of the layer. It is white where the layer is completely opaque, gray where it is partly transparent, and black where it is completely transparent.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com