colour help needed

[keslo66]

hi there. was hoping you could help me. ive got a picture which i want to turn to black and white. i can do that. but i want to leave the eyes and lips in colour. i cant seem to do this. i know its proberly something to do with layering or masking.

please help

[kitina]

hi
The first thing you need to do is to duplicate your layer. Then select those part that you want to keep unchanged (I recomand using the pen tool). Delete everithing that is around them (select inverse and delete) on the upper layer. Desaturate the lower layer.
You may also want to give a small feather to the selection before you delet the parts you want to desaturate to obtaine a more real effect.

You can also desaturate everithing and then select the part you want to color and aplie some color to it (not fountain fill. Use color balance or hue/saturation). Again aplie a small feather to the selectoin

[Excruciating]

And I reccomend you take a look at this topic:
http://www.devppl.com/forum/tips-for-creating-black-and-white-photos-vt3731.html For some nice effects in black and white.

[keslo66]

i think i must be really dumb. i create the duplicate layer. then turn 1 black and white. then select colour range and click what i want. but it doesnt ever seem to work. im determined to learn this program if it kills me (which it well may do lol)

[kitina]

It`s not that hard actualy.
Trie this first. Duplicate you layer. Make the original one bw and the upper one live as it is. Delete half of the upper layer. Tell me then if the result resembles to what you had in mind (I know you want only the eyes and lips but perhaps you would better trie in small steps)

[kitina]

Anyawy the ideea is that you should have half the imag bw and half colored. it`s the same with the eyes and the lips. The only thing you need to be careful about is the fether (ctrl+alt+del).
And when you desaturate an image be sure to do it by using desaturate (image /adjustmenst /desaturate) not by going to mode (image /mode/grayscale) becouse you will still need to use a color palet further on and in grayscale mode all your colors will be transformed in black and white