Now and then I have posted a few pictures that are in black and white with just a spot or two of color. And I have had a few people ask me how I do this. I thought I would take a shot at describing it here. You must first, of course, have some sort of photo editing software that has "layering" capability. The two I know of are PhotoStudio (which is what I use and will be my reference point) and the ever popular PhotoShop. If you do not have either one of these, there is an editing tool called The Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/) which can be downloaded from the net. Last I checked the simple version of it was free and had layering capability. A brief kudos to my brother-in-law Jared for bringing this site to my attention.
First open the picture you want to edit. Then on the Layer menu, select "add new layer" or something to that effect. Within the layer toolbar, highlight the original picture and make a copy of it. Then paste it as a new layer. Essentially you have made a copy of the picture and then placed it over the top of the original. If you are using Gimp, you can simply select "duplicate layer" and skip over the whole copy/paste phooey. I don't know about PhotoShop, though.
Making sure you have the top layer, i.e. the "copy" selected, the second step is to turn it to black and white. Find the Hue and Saturation tool on your editing software, take it all the way down to zero - that usually does the trick.
Finally, still working with the top layer, select the Eraser tool. Then just erase any area where you want the original color to show through.
I hope this all made sense. If not, maybe I'll just come visit you. I learned this trick from a friend and have been in love with it ever since. I think everyone looks better in black and white, but sometimes a little color is so fun. This is the best of both worlds. I must say that I am a little sad to give this secret up since it seems to be somewhat of a unique feature of my site. However, for those who are determined, you would find out anyways. I might as well go down as being unselfish. Happy editing!
First open the picture you want to edit. Then on the Layer menu, select "add new layer" or something to that effect. Within the layer toolbar, highlight the original picture and make a copy of it. Then paste it as a new layer. Essentially you have made a copy of the picture and then placed it over the top of the original. If you are using Gimp, you can simply select "duplicate layer" and skip over the whole copy/paste phooey. I don't know about PhotoShop, though.
Making sure you have the top layer, i.e. the "copy" selected, the second step is to turn it to black and white. Find the Hue and Saturation tool on your editing software, take it all the way down to zero - that usually does the trick.
Finally, still working with the top layer, select the Eraser tool. Then just erase any area where you want the original color to show through.
I hope this all made sense. If not, maybe I'll just come visit you. I learned this trick from a friend and have been in love with it ever since. I think everyone looks better in black and white, but sometimes a little color is so fun. This is the best of both worlds. I must say that I am a little sad to give this secret up since it seems to be somewhat of a unique feature of my site. However, for those who are determined, you would find out anyways. I might as well go down as being unselfish. Happy editing!
And then there is this. This is the push toy we bought for Christmas. He likes it much better as a riding toy than as a walker. Unfortunately, the seat is a little slick...it was a very sad fall indeed.
This is the boy's first Christmas - we are excited! Yesterday he very much enjoyed looking out the window at the snow as it came down. Maybe he was secretly searching for the fat guy in a red suit. I personally like this picture because it shows his cute little butt.
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