How to Take Black & White Photos With Color Subjects

Color photographs can easily be converted into vintage looking black and white photos in Photoshop. You can transform the background of the photo into grayscale by desaturating it and create strong visual contrast and focus. Advanced Photoshop users can take a more hands-on approach by choosing to adjust color channels and mixers to achieve the desired gray color balance through an experimental process. For the beginner, using the "desaturate" option is the simplest method.

Instructions

1

Open the digital photograph file in Photoshop. Click on the "Image" option in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

2

Scroll down to the "Adjustments" icon, and slide your cursor onto the popup menu and down to "Desaturate" and click it. The image should become black and white and is ready to print if you don't want to make any further adjustments.

3

Add additional interest to your photo by preserving the color of the photo subjects while leaving the background black and white. Type "Cntrl" "A" to select the whole image. Type "Cntrl" "C" to copy the selected area, then "Cntrl" "V" to paste a duplicate image in another layer. Highlight the "non-background" layer on the layers tab. Go back through the "Image" menu to resaturate the selected layer. Click on the eraser icon in the tools menu. Select the eraser size you wish to work with based on the size of the subjects you want to leave in color.

4

Erase carefully around the outline of the subjects in the color layer. The black-and-white layer beneath will allow the background to reappear in black and white anywhere you erase. If you make a mistake, delete that step from the history menu. Erase all of the colored background using the eraser tool. When you have finished the image and are ready to save or print, flatten all the layers into one layer in the drop-down "Layer" menu.

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Color photographs can easily be converted into vintage looking black and white photos in Photoshop. You can transform the background of the photo into grayscale by desaturating it and create strong visual contrast and focus. Advanced Photoshop users can take a more hands-on approach by choosing to adjust color channels and mixers to achieve the desired gray color balance through an experimental process. For the beginner, using the "desaturate" option is the simplest method.

Instructions

1

Open the digital photograph file in Photoshop. Click on the "Image" option in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

2

Scroll down to the "Adjustments" icon, and slide your cursor onto the popup menu and down to "Desaturate" and click it. The image should become black and white and is ready to print if you don't want to make any further adjustments.

3

Add additional interest to your photo by preserving the color of the photo subjects while leaving the background black and white. Type "Cntrl" "A" to select the whole image. Type "Cntrl" "C" to copy the selected area, then "Cntrl" "V" to paste a duplicate image in another layer. Highlight the "non-background" layer on the layers tab. Go back through the "Image" menu to resaturate the selected layer. Click on the eraser icon in the tools menu. Select the eraser size you wish to work with based on the size of the subjects you want to leave in color.

4

Erase carefully around the outline of the subjects in the color layer. The black-and-white layer beneath will allow the background to reappear in black and white anywhere you erase. If you make a mistake, delete that step from the history menu. Erase all of the colored background using the eraser tool. When you have finished the image and are ready to save or print, flatten all the layers into one layer in the drop-down "Layer" menu.

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