subject: Selective Colouring, why use it? [print this page] Selective Colouring, why use it? Selective Colouring, why use it?
Selective colouring in photography is very popular, people seem to love the effects of black and white images with a certain area made to stand out by remaining in colour. Personally I'm not a fan of this kind of work (although I do admit I have used it, it sells what can I say!), and feel it adds very little to an image, however... My tips here are on how to get it right!
There are various ways to achieve the actual selective colouring, and these will vary from software package to software package, but the basic premise is to select an area you don't want to be in black and white (using one of the multitude of selection tools on modern photo editing software, or using history brushes etc) and then converting the rest of the image to monochrome however you normally would (this isn't a tutorial on that sorry).
What this article aims to do is help you avoid the most common mistakes people fall into making when they decide they want to use selective colouring.
1) Only have one colour still active. Selective colouring only works when it is one colour picked out and the rest of the image is black and white. Often you will find people have a couple of colours still active and this will in fact detract rather than highlight the areas you are trying to pick out.
2) Only leave one area in colour. Again as above people will often try to have a number of objects picked out, this goes against the whole point of selective colouring. The idea is to make one item or area stand out, if you have a few areas picked out, there will be no focal point highlighted so your eye will be drawn all over the page (but not in a good way).
3) Make the object or area you are highlighting an important area of focus. Often in wedding photography you will see the flowers held by the bride picked out, this works, however sometimes you will find an area that is of no interest picked out in colour, I have seen crisp packets picked out in colour or someone's socks. These are odd elements, and I guess if you are trying to highlight rubbish or sell socks it might work but generally you need to consider what the main element of the photograph is, and that is what you should be attempting to highlight with selective colouring.
4) Try to avoid halos. Halos are where the area around the selected colour area bleed colour into the black and white of the rest of the image. You need to have very crisp lines, or it starts to look messy.
I hope I have shown a few areas that will help you to achieve a good quality picture with selected highlights. If you like this tip, more can be found at http://www.fatphotographer.net.
