What can be simpler than Black and White? Grayscale technique didn’t lose its popularity since the photography appeared. For example, black and white is the major color scheme in street photography, it is also often used in portraiture and lifestyle photos. It is good for concentrating the viewer’s attention on pure emotion, with no extra decoration or distractive details. However, very often grayscale photography can’t compete with colored one when it comes to reflecting bright and vibrant world around. Adding colored elements to the black and white or monochrome photograph, creates an original and expressive visual effect which can be achieved by using special tools, layers and masks in photo editing software (Photoshop, Paintshop Pro for example).

In this article you will find some useful tutorials covering selective color post-processing technique, as well as a collection of exquisite partial colored black and white photography. Many photographers consider this method overused and even cheap, but photos showcased below prove that when skillfully done and put to the point, selective color provides a remarkable visual experience to the viewer.

Selective Coloring Tutorials

Glamour Color Pop fx: Photoshop

This is an excellent video tutorial. It features a complex and powerful selection technique which can be quite helpful in making difficult selection easy (i.e. changing hair color). By creating and editing the color channels and painting different colors into them, the author creates a very accurate selection around the model’s bikini and colors it while leaving the rest of the image black & white.

Selective coloring and Tonal Color Effects

This tutorial by well-know illustrator and digital fine art photographer Tim Shelbourne was published in O’reilly’ Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook. It shows how to add a color element to the grayscale picture and provides a number of other techniques that can expand on that concept many times over. Very informative and educational.

Selective coloring in 6 simple steps

This is a short tutorial showing the basic selective coloring technique in Photoshop. The author explains how to make a feather colored by means of layers and masks.

Enhance Your Image with Selective Color Adjustments

With the help of this tutorial you will learn a nondestructive process for color-editing and retouching photographs. These techniques will make your images “finished” and professional. The main tool the author uses is the Selective Color adjustment layer.

PaintShop Pro X2 Selective Coloring Tutorial

This tutorial explain selective coloring in PainShop Pro software. It features the process in reverse motion - a colored picture is changed to the black and white one with only a certain part colored.

Selective Color Tutorial in Photoshop CS3

Selective coloring is a nice trait for wedding portraiture. This is a tutorial on how to convert an image of a bride to black and white and then selectively paint the bouquet in her hands to make the color pop. The video presents a quite simple and handy technique.

Understanding Selective Coloring

This is a detailed tutorial for beginner users. It will help you understand the selective coloring tool and how to use it without abuse to enhance colors in your images.

Greatly Performed and Creative Selective Coloring Examples

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