History brush wont work properly

[fotojunkie]

Hi

Im using a PC and CS4

i was working on a photo , in which

i used the desaturate function , and then

used history brush to colour back in areas

i wanted in colour

i didnt have time to finish the fine edges , so

i saved as a psd , but now when i come back to

the photo , where i chose to open as-psd , then just

to open it as all , etc ( i tried all the options )

the history brush either has no effect on the photo

or it gives some weird colours not anywhere near the

original colours from the photo

I tried opening other photos as a test , i desaturate

then try the history brush on them , but no luck , it

does the same thing to these photos , and in general

just messes them up

im obviously a noob here , can anyone help me fix this ?

i have no idea where 2 start

Cheers

[bripriuk]

Hi
History states are lost when you save a file in Photoshop or most other programs. The history brush is not usually a good choice for this sort of thing for the reason you have discovered.
A better non-destructive method is:

Layer>New Adjustment layer>Hue saturation, set saturation to -100.
In the layer pallette, click on the layer mask of the Saturation layer to select it.
Paint with black - this will have the same effect as the history brush. Painting with white will reverse the process. You can also use gradient fills, etc.
The layer mask will remain active after saving and opening as a psd.
Layer masks are at the heart of working non-destructively in Photoshop - have a search for some of the tutorials on-line.



Brian

[fotojunkie]

Very informed reply

Cheers

[bripriuk]

No Problem.
There are a few keyboard shortcuts that can help - 'B' selects the paintbrush, the square bracket keys '[' and ']' make the brush smaller or larger, 'D' will set the colours to Black and White, and 'X' will change from Black to White or vice versa.

Brian

[fotojunkie]

cheers