blocks of colour on black and white images

[vj]

I'm new to photo editing and would appreciate some advice on how to add some colour back into an image I've changed to black and white (e.g. background black and white with main subject in colour, background and subject black and white with colur added back for flowers being held by subject). I have a trial version of Elements v7 downloaded at the moment. Thanks.

[ladyups]

Sorry, Vi, I'm not sure about elements but in Photoshop CS2, you would open your colored image, duplicate that first layer and then change that layer to black and white. Then add a mask and paint the color you want back in. White reveals, black conceals, so you would use a white brush to bring the color back in. Elements probably works a lot like this...I'm just not sure.

[daltoned]

I've discovered one way of doing this in Elements 6 and I'm sure Elements7 would be the same. It uses the quick selection tool to isolate that part of the image that you want to stay colour and then you inverse the remainder to B&W using the convert to B&W which has options for image type. If you look at the help section I'm sure you see the process explained.