How to Make Your Color Photos Stand Out with Photoshop

I've worked with Photoshop and its effects on a regular basis for over eight years, quickly becoming the "go-to" expert for friends and family with photo retouching, enhancement, or other graphics needs. Over the years I've used a great deal of different Photoshop effects for different purposes, and have found ways to make utilizing the effects easier and more enjoyable for both the average and the advanced Photoshop user.

In my previous article I discussed colorizing a grayscale image by hand. In this article, we'll look at removing the color from an image and only putting back the elements we want. By far the easiest method of accomplishing this is to simply select part of it to be in color, and leave the rest of it black and white. Not only is it a striking effect, it's also quick and easy to make.

(Disclaimer: I've had people ask me complex questions about getting into the professional photography business. While I have friends in the profession and know that Photoshop is a necessary tool for the modern photographer, I'm not in the business, so I can't answer related questions; I just have a knack for retouching the photos of friends and family and am familiar with the workings of the program.)

Select the photo you're going to use and click on the "Crop" tool. Make a box around the part of the image you want to change and hit Enter. If you plan to crop down to a specific size, you can access the box you need through the Options toolbar near the top of your screen. You'll need to input what unit of measurement you'll be using, since Photoshop's default measurement is in pixels.

Click the circle at the bottom of your Layers Palette (the one that's half-white and half-black) to make an "adjustment layer", then go to Hue/Saturation. Drag the slidebar in the box as far left as it will go; doing this will remove the color elements from your photo. Click on "OK".

Adjustment layers are a wonderful thing, mainly because they come with a handy layer mask attached. With this, we can mask (hence the name) the effects behind the adjustment layer when needed. Keep the layer mask selected (look for the moving dotted line), then click on the "Brush" tool.

A good tip to keep in mind is that, graphically speaking, black will hide a multitude of sins while white will bring it out in the open. We're trying to hide part of the adjustment layer, so you're going to need black. Open up the color box in your Toolbar and run through the colors until you have black highlighted.

Return to the photo you've chosen to work on, and start to paint the area you want colored. You should see the chosen color begin to bleed through. Choose the appropriate brush size that will give you the most coverage without being too large. For a closer look at what you're doing, hit Ctrl + to zoom in. Hitting Ctrl - will have the opposite effect, letting you see the bigger picture.

If you decide you've added too much color to the photo, just switch the paint until the white is selected (remembering the point I made earlier) and repaint that area. Don't get discouraged if you find yourself going back and forth a few times before you're satisfied with the result.

When you're done, the colors should match their original shade and vibrancy. The great thing about using this method to erase the color and bring back only what you want, is that (thanks to our adjustment layer) the pixels haven't been tampered with. If you want to start over, all you have to do is get rid of that layer and begin a new one-kind of like a kleenex.

Now you can bring out the beauty of any color photo through selective enhancement.