TECH- Photoshop ...adding a selected b/w effect to your color pics

[Coupe-De-CAB]

I guess this would fall under the art catagory, but i wanted to share this with guys who love taking photos and who want to manipulate them a bit on their computer.

I had recently posted a photo in this weeks Wednesday photo show and had a couple people wanting to now how it was done... it's my first tech post ...so here ya go and hope it's not too confusing:

I use a G4 MAC computer and use the Adobe photoshop CS2 program.

Step #1- open up your photo shop program and choose a photo your going to be working with from your iPhoto library or one of your folders which hold all your photos and open up that image.



Step#2- Once you selected your photo, go up to the menu bar at the top and click on layer while scrolling down to duplicate layer and select. there will be a box on the lower right hand of the screen that should show that you have two layers now. make sure the duplicate layer is the one selected which is labeled "background copy" ...unless you labeled it something else before hitting the okay button).

Step#3- now that you have that layer selected, go back up to menu bar and click on image while scrolling down to adjustments then scrolling over to hue/saturation and select it. a small box should pop-up with some levels. take your curser arrow and bring the saturation level to -100 till you see your image go from color all the way to black and white, then click okay.



Step#4- assuming you still have the "background copy" layer still highlighted, take your curser arrow and click on the little eraser image in your tool box on the left side of your screen. Once you've chosen your eraser tool, go to the menu on the top and choose your brush size. this is important for making sure you have the right size brush for those small areas you want to start to erase on this now black and white image.
take the master diameter level and choose your size of brush before you begin.

You can also zoom in on your image for more accurate and cleaner look.

Now just start erasing your image till you see color come through the photo like this



Once you've finished adding all the color you want back into your photo, your ready to flatten the image and make it one layer.

Go up to the menu bar back at the top click on layer while scrolling down to flatten image then select it. you now have the finish product to be proud of



there's so many other tricks and effects i haven't learned about photoshop yet, but this was one of the firsts and it's pretty cool... well enjoy!
best wishes,
CAB

[Flathead Youngin']

man, that is awesome! seriously!

a quick question- i'm always wanting to learn to take better photos- how did you make the object in the foreground so crystal clear....it looks more distinct than what my camera does......

is this a high end camera thing?

[Slammed88]

Originally Posted by Flathead Youngin'

man, that is awesome! seriously!

a quick question- i'm always wanting to learn to take better photos- how did you make the object in the foreground so crystal clear....it looks more distinct than what my camera does......

is this a high end camera thing?

I was just about to ask the same question. My pictures never come out as vivid and clear as that.

[A32Flathead]

Originally Posted by Slammed88

I was just about to ask the same question. My pictures never come out as vivid and clear as that.

Many years of practice & a good camera is the short answer....



Nice Tech post Steve, I suck with Photoshop!!

[AHotRod]

That's cool, now I know !

[Coupe-De-CAB]

Originally Posted by Flathead Youngin'

man, that is awesome! seriously!

a quick question- i'm always wanting to learn to take better photos- how did you make the object in the foreground so crystal clear....it looks more distinct than what my camera does......

is this a high end camera thing?

yup

To get this effect you need to spend pretty penny to get a good telephoto lens. You may get lucky and find a cheaper/less expensive used one, but buying something used, you never know what may be wrong with it.

any hoots... the lens i use is a Canon 2.8 70mm-200mm zoom lens which cost a little over a grand.

you could do this another way in photoshop which wouldn't cost you a dime, where instead of changing the saturation like in step#3 to make the photo black and white, you'd go up to the menu bar and click on filter then scroll down and highlight blur, then scroll down again and highlight Motion blur and click okay, then you get this effect on that layer. there's so many blurr effects to choose from, i just chose this one.




then just get you easer tool once again and start erasing the parts you don't want blurred, like the main subject, your car.

by the way... the camera i'm using is the Canon EOS 30D, which probably helps with the look, but the type of lens your using is what makes it krystal klear!

[Coupe-De-CAB]

Originally Posted by A32Flathead

Nice Tech post Steve, I suck with Photoshop!!

Thanks Dave, come over and i'll teach ya a few photoshop tricks
Wait til you see this new tele-lens we just got, if you thought the digi camera was the bomb, you gonna drool over this thing!
I'm bringing it to Paso with me and if your nice, i might let you look through it
See you this weekend my friend.

[hellbound gasser]

Depending on the subject, i have found that sometimes its easier to use the trace/select tool. I select the item i want to remain in color, then click copy. Then drop the color out of the image and click paste. Most times it drops the cut out image right on top of the old one, so there is no messing around with position. I will have to try your method though Coupe for when i want multiple items in color, thanks.

[A32Flathead]

Originally Posted by Coupe-De-CAB

Thanks Dave, come over and i'll teach ya a few photoshop tricks
Wait til you see this new tele-lens we just got, if you thought the digi camera was the bomb, you gonna drool over this thing!
I'm bringing it to Paso with me and if your nice, i might let you look through it
See you this weekend my friend.

Cool...look forward to seeing it, check out the Bomber pic's I just posted in the Wed Photo Show, I was using my 75-300 Canon lens for the 1st time, I'm pleased with the results.

See ya Sat

[Bondobob]

Having the subject in focus and the back ground out of focus is called "Depth of Field" or more accurately, a shallow depth of field. On old school film cameras you can adjust the lens opening (aperture) to the get what ever depth of field you want if there is enough light. Bigger opening=less depth and smaller opening=more depth. My digital can't do it.

[Jigger]

CAB,
you're the bestest!
Thanks for being, man!

So,... Why did you sell that gold Coupe?

[UnIOnViLLEHauNT]

Thats rad. I use a powerbook 15" and CS2 as well, never figured that out tho...always wanted to.

As an aside...if I may, my gf bought me an E500 body (Evolt) and Im shopping for a lense. This basically is what Im going to do, just single car shots to mess around with, what lense would you recommend? Im a total newbie at the camera thing...just outgrew the point and click and want to go to the next level with a better specimen to start with at Photoshop.

[Thirdyfivepickup]

I hope this isn't considered a hijack, but here is a different way of doing it with a different program

I use Picture It! 9 from Microsoft. What I do is highlight what I want to be in color and copy it. Then I paste it... with this program it drops it exactly where it came from, so you don't have to readjust it. Then I just turn the background black and white.



There is also a function called 'EMPHASIZE' that will do the depth of field trick, but it looks a bit fake. To do that I copy what I want to emphasize and then paste it. Then I go to the EFFECTS menu and choose EMPHASIZE. From there I click on the BLUR option and we get this...

[Coupe-De-CAB]

Unionvillehaunt Your lens choice should depend on the look your trying to get. I really wanted that "depth of field" (crystal clear subject w/background blurred) look and i knew the only way to get that look was to purchase an expensive telephoto zoom lens, you just can't get the same effect with something like a normal 50mm lens. For the distorted look, you may want to go with a 15mm fisheye lens.

Jigger look on the wed photo show post and you'll see why, it's the black '35.

Bondobob with the correct lens, your digi can ( that's if your digital camera has interchangeble lenses.

hellbound gasser the trace/select tool is useful, but has limitations at times. the eraser tool is much easier and faster i feel for this effect.

Thirdyfivepickup if you notice though, it's has still color inside the car through the windows, that's why the "select/paste" tool has limitations looks good though, nice job!

[Thirdyfivepickup]

Originally Posted by Coupe-De-CAB

Thirdyfivepickup if you notice though, it's has still color inside the car through the windows, that's why the "select/paste" tool has limitations looks good though, nice job!

Yeah, in my haste, I forgot to clean that up. It only took me a second to fix the one on my hard drive.

Good catch!

[the shark]

how did you get that ghost image of a lady sitting in your truck? thats pretty trick... and creepy

great tech, by the way. thanks

[Coupe-De-CAB]

I was told that the truck was haunted, and if your quick enough and have the right lighting, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of the the lady sitting in the front seat who previously owned it ...i must have a very fast lens

[GaryC]

very cool, thanks for posting.

On the depth of field thing, you actually *can* do it with a good 50mm. I have a 50mm nikon F/1.8 I just threw onto my D200 for aquick example. There is a more expensive 50mm F/1.4 but it costs a few bills more and seeing as how I rarely shoot portraits and low-light, I decided to be a cheap ass and get the 1.8. Not a huge difference, but there IS a difference, even though it's 3/10th of a step. I mainly find myself shooting with a 18-70 or a 70-300 so the 50 is just a nice add-on to have laying around for the rare portrait stuff I do. Ignore the picture itself, I literally just picked my camera up threw the 50 on it and snapped a pic of a coke sitting on my table to show the depth of field. You can get the same effect with a car for example and bluring the background but the can was a handy example right at hand.


The exif on it is as follows

Model: Nikon D200
Focal Length: 50.0mm
F-Number: F/1.8
Exposure Time: 0.0125 sec. 1/80
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
Compensation: -0.7
ISO Speed: 200

This was on an 18-70 f/3.5-4.5 - resized in photoshop and a slight levels tweak to compensate for shooting through the plate glass for another example. I'd have to pull out the original and bring up the exif to grab the details.. I can if you want but I don't have it on-hand.



I'm not a fan of photoshop for things other than resizing, color adjustments, etc. but there is a filter in there called lense blur which will decently "re-create" the d.o.f. look you may be after. Same thing, select the area you want to be blurred and then use that filter.. there's a bunch of adjustments like radial blurs, percentage, etc.

With a non-DSLR if you have a manual mode you can get close, by opening up or closing up your aperature and adjusting the exposure level to suit. If it's just a point and click camera with an auto only mode, I think your stuck with playing around in photoshop.

Anyhow - thanks for the tutorial! Nice pics by the way, I'm really liking the truck shot with selective color, looks sharp! Keep it up!

[Coupe-De-CAB]

Gary,
Good stuff and i agree, with a 50mm lens, you can get the blurred background effect, but with small items or subjects. It's a bit more difficult when your dealing with large objects such as a car. that's why a nice zoom lens comes in handy for that effect. thanks for all your information dealing with a 50mm. I'd like to see some examples of "depth of field" photos of Hotrods with that same lens
thanks for posting

[GaryC]

Coupe-De-CAB -
It definitely is easier with a zoom - that's for sure. I agree with you 100%. Doing it with a 50mm takes some time...ok that's a lie, a pretty large bit of it, until you get the feel for it. I don't have any off-hand as I'll have to pull up my exif's to see what was shot with what as I've been horrible about jumping back and forth with my lenses recently. That said I hopped on another website I'm on and pulled this one - shot with a 50 and a large object off-hand. I don't want to kill his bandwidth so I'll to link it - it's a horse, not a car, and *not* my photo - but it's a good example of the depth of field on a F1.8 50mm with a large object.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...i/Project2.jpg

I'll dig through my pictures and pull some hopefully in the next few days - shot with the 50mm. I don't know about you, but I'm glad to see there's a few other photography folks on the site as well! Always cool to be able to swap tips / tricks / etc. revolving around hotrod & custom photography. Once again, nice pics and thanks for the writeup on selective coloring! I'll have to fire up photoshop CS and give it a whirl one of these days.