help with elements 6

[meredith]

i am using photoshop elements 6 but really have no idea what im doing. can anyone tell me how to make a photo black and white but keep one object coloured ? ill probably need step by step instructions. iv bought a few books but still dont get it. im going to need to so a course i think. thankyou to anyone who can help ! xxxxx:confused:

[chris.e.fry]

you mean one of those shots where it is all B&W except for maybe the eyes are still color? i think that is what you mean. here is the most plain vanilla way of doing it that i know. this is not the best way, but it is the easiest that i know of. first you want to make a duplicate layer of your color photo. convert your duplicate layer to black and white under Enhance > Convert To Black And White. Play with your channels and contrast until it is to your liking. Then get out the eraser tool and simply erase where you want there to be color. This essentially takes away parts of the B&W layer where you want color to show through. Play with the eraser size and stuff. Blow your pic up nice and big so you only hit the places you want.

[shayebryd]

That's how I do it too....although I know there are other ways...this one works well and is so easy.....
And like Chris stated, make sure you zoom in real close when you do this!!
Have fun!!! :)

[jerryph]

This takes multiple layers to do and I am pretty sure that this cannot be done in Elements 6.

You would need Photoshop to do selective colour.

[chris.e.fry]

There is no problem doing this in Elements 6. I am currently using Elements 6 as my primary image editor and I have done this plenty of times. The directions I gave above are based on one way I know it can be done using specifically PE6. I have found that the newer versions of Elements are a good bit more powerful than most people assume.

[shayebryd]

Actually I have PSE 6 and I do it very easily...just as stated above......
And you don't need multiple layers.....there are other ways I have done it too....but this way it so simple...and effective!!! :)

[jerryph]

There you go, live and learn. :)
Sorry for the misinformation, I have Elements 5 not 6. Seems they added a lot more into it.

So it can do layering now? I am impressed. :)

[chris.e.fry]

To be honest, with Elements 6 I can do almost anything that CS3 users can do. If I look up a tutorial on how to do something, and the directions are for CS, I can usually figure out a roundabout way to do it in Elements. From a lot of tutorials I have looked at, it seems like it might be easier or quicker to do certain things in CS.

I used to use Elements 2, which was very limited. Then I upgraded to PSE6 and it opened up a whole new world for me. I have recently found a limitation that really bothers me, though, about PE6 that might push me to get CS4. I have been tinkering with HDR in Photomatix but PE6 throws a fit when I try to open the HDR image in Elements. I actually got a message telling me that I should upgrade to at least CS2 if I want to edit HDR images. :eek:

[coffee]

Even Element 5 can do this. That's what I have.

[LensBaby]

I used elements 5 before I bought my cs2, and I could do that in it. That was the easiest way that I found to do it actually.