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Add colour to your monochrome images

While toning and hand-colouring are traditional methods of adding a splash of colour to monochrome prints, Photoshop has offered an extra option. By converting a colour image to black and white, it is possible to retain colour in particular areas of the image where you want to create emphasis. There are two popular ways to do this in Photoshop. The first is to use a Lasso tool to select an area. Then, depending on whether you want to lose the colour from inside this area or outside it, the inverse command in the Select menu is selected. The alternative way is to create a duplicate layer and lose the colour information from it. Then, careful use of the Eraser tool brings the colour back in. A graphics tablet is recommended for accuracy when carrying out either of these methods.

A SPLASH OF COLOUR

This image lacked a particular point of emphasis when completely monochrome because both faces are obscured, so there was no natural focal point. However, bringing the colour back into the rose makes a marked difference, with the dominant red grabbing the attention. The Lasso tool was used with a feather of 50 pixels to select the flower and inverse selected so that the colour information was retained inside the selection area and removed from the rest of the frame.

Canon EOS-1DS, 28–70mm lens, 1/250 sec at f/18, ISO 400.