How do you adjust a photo to...?

Question

How do you adjust a photo so its black and white but you can turn your lips a different color?

What is it called??

Answer 1

Here is an easy way to selectively take away color. Just follow these instrutions.

1. Open your photo in photoshop, gimp, paint shop pro or other image editing software that supports layers.
2. Add a hue/saturation adjustment layer.
3. Pull the saturation slider all the way down and click ok.
4. Add a layer mask to the hue/saturation layer if it is not already added to the layer (photoshop automaticaly adds a layer mask to adjustment layers).
5. Paint on the layer mask using black to reveal color where you want the color to show through, in this case, the lips.

If you want to be able to change the color of the lips at any time, you can add a second hue/saturation adjustment layer between the background layer and the first adjustment layer.

Answer 2

If you use PhotoShop or some program where you can "layer" pictures, do this:

Start with your cropped, already edited color photo on the bottom. Open that same file in another window and "desaturate" it. Adjust the black and white photo to your desired brightness and contrast. Drag the black and white photo on top of the color photo as a 2nd layer. You should now only be able to see the black and white photo and the color photo is covered completely up. Now take the eraser tool and erase the parts of the black and white photo where you want color to shine through. Lips...eyes...some part of your clothing...or your hair.

Here is one that I did with a cheap cell phone picture:
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/4205/m7acca38eef1ee0b26b30e5wf3.jpg

Hopefully, you have a program that allows you to do layers!

Answer 3

My two cents worth:
Instead of de-saturating, use the b&w gradient map, then adjust levels. The tonality is so much better than straight de-saturate.

Oh.... the technique is called selective color.

Answer 4

Selective de-saturation.