Foto

This is a photo of a parrot I took at Everland theme park in South Korea. Originally the photo was colour, but I've been playing with black and white.

This photo is the third and final in a series of black and white photos, with a touch of colour. They're all photos I've taken in colour, but converted to black and white to achieve this effect.

I don't know if this effect has an official name though. If you know what this technique is called, please let me know ... Ok, so, how did I do it?

Easy!

Step 1: open the photo in photoshop.
Step 2: create a new layer that's a copy of the original layer.
Step 3: make the new layer black and white (shift+ctl+u is the hot key method)
Step 4: use any method you prefer to "cut out" the part of the picture you want to be colour. i use a combination of the magnetic lasso, pen tool and magic wand tool.
Step 5: zoom in to an extreme magnification to clean up the small spots.
Step 6: profit.

Basically, you're cutting holes in the black and white photo to let the colour photo come through. very simple.

I've done a few of these now, just to practice the effect and find out how it works and what looks good. I'll upload a few more because I intend to make it into a theme!

Critiques are definitely welcome!