creating colored subjects and b&w backgrounds

**pez** · August 26th, 2004

I've been getting lots of request on how I make my subjects in color
and the backgrounds b&w so heres a little lesson on how its done!

All this work is done in adobe photoshop 7.0 don't mind the program in the
step #2 picture of the tool bar, I use a dual monitor system so I can
use a full monitor for photoshop and put all my tools on the other
monitor, I also put acdsee on the other screen so I can see my
previews and drag them into photoshot. Works really well, so don't
get confused and think I'm using acdsee! ok anyways on with the lesson
You can do this with paint shop pro or what ever program you use to edit
your photos. Its basically the same but the program menus are diff and such, so try to make it apply to what ever program you use.

Step #1

open your photo LOL
I usually resize it to 1600 x 1200

@

step #2
click the polygonal lasso tool, you can also
use the lasso tool (the circle one.) I'm more compfortable
using the polygonal. Some people are really really good
at using the pen tool to mask a subject but I know nothing
about it!!

Ok now that you have the polygonal tool I usually
zoom into my photo about 200% so I can really hug the subject
with my mask. click a starting point and trace the subject all the
around don't forget little areas between arms. so you click one point
then bring your line around to hug the figure and click the next
point and so on and so on. if there is a curve it takes alot more
clicks to make that mask go around it smoothly. If you decide to
use lasso tool then all you have to do is click once and hold draw
around the subject. the only prob with this is if your zoomed in this
far when you get to the top of the window it just takes off lol.
I hope this is making sense!! If not ask questions.
it will take some time to learn to make masks, this one is a tedious
one!!! I suggest trying something with less curves to start off with
and get used to the tools.

Ok now you have the mask drawn around your subjects well what is a
mask for? Masks are used like you got that mask around the girls, if
you took a paint brush and painted black all over the photo only the
girls will be affected the background will be untouched. well we want
to mess with the background so if you go up top and click SELECT--> INVERSE that will invert your mask.

so now everything oppisite is selected, in other words now the backgroudn is
selected and the girls arn't so if you took that paintbrush and painted on the
photo it will now effect the bg and not the girls! perfect, don't use a paint
brush on it tho LOL its just an example

oh and another thing if you mask a whole subject and there is a hole looking
into the bg, like tru an arm or somethingthen just click and hold the shift key
and mask it out it will add it to your selection. and if you mask something you didn't want to then click and hold the alt key and it will make it so you
can remove anything you didn't want in the mask.

click the photo to see the masksed subjects larger

OK now you have an inversed mask, you want to click IMAGE-->
ADJUSTMENTS--->DESATURATE now your background is B&W there we
go!! you can now click IMAGE--->ADJUSTMENTS--->AUTO LEVELS see if it
makes your back ground more of a stronger b&w if not and you don't like
then click EDIT--->UNDO. You can also add a motion blur and see how that
looks I didn't do that with this photo, to do that click FILTER-->BLUR--->motion blur or any of the others if you want, play around!!!

finished girls

@

have fun and if you have more questions ask and I'll try to answer
also I use a PC not a Mac so kestrokes and menus may be different
also menus might be diff if your using a diff version of photoshop

**Candidbandit** · August 26th, 2004

sweet... i'll give that a try definatly on my next post. Hope you don't mind me copycating you Pez. But I really love how it brings the subjects out of the picture.

**pez** · August 27th, 2004

hahaha copy cat this type of enhancements have been used for along time!!! I copycated from someone else

**balrais1** · September 16th, 2004

hey PEZ,

I was reading your post on making a selection colour and the rest in b&w and thought it was awesome. I wanted to know if instead of making the background b&w how can we make it all white or all black?

**Knee My** · September 16th, 2004

Originally Posted by balrais1

I was reading your post on making a selection colour and the rest in b&w and thought it was awesome. I wanted to know if instead of making the background b&w how can we make it all white or all black?

Pez, I hope you don't mind if I jump in. I love messing around with Photoshop too. Great idea to post techniques like this here. Thanks.

The key to doing anything with the background is the method of selection that Pez described. Once you've got a selected region, all of the Photoshop effects/tools will apply only to the selection.

Original

Black background

White background

Filling with either black or white is simply a matter of using the Edit | Fill function and choosing what color to fill.

Black/white background

Doing this was a little trickier. Unless there's a filter that will make a selection into a "bitmap" (two-color), I had to copy the selected bacground and paste it into a new window, then convert to bitmap and copy back. This is done with Image | Mode | Grayscale then Image | Mode | Bitmap.

Filter | Pixelate | Color Halftone

But, like Pez said, you can do anything!

**balrais1** · September 16th, 2004

thanks Knee My,

I cannot believe all the things you can do with Phooshop. Thanks for openning my eyes! I'll be playing with that today...
thanks again