Whats The Easiest Way To Do This Please?

[Barbelfisher]

Good Afternoon Everyone,

What is the easiest way to beef up a drab sky in a colour pic, is it something to do with the selection tool to isolate the sky from the pic?

Also what is the best way to go about changing a colour pic into B=W but being able to adjust the image into a nice contrasty pic? Plus how can i keep or make just certain parts of a B=W pic contain colour?

Please be Gentle i am a newbie.

[brucet]

With all 'edits' there is more than one way to achieve an end result. Without seeing the pic it's hard to give an accurate answer.

For the sky I would use the 'Freehand Selection Tool'. Isolate your sky. Then there is a number of steps you may wish to try. Depending on the colour available in the pic you may be able to get a good result by simply using Adjust/Hue Saturation. Then, while still having the sky selected you may want to try adjusting the Contrast. (You don't say what version of PSP you are using. If it's x6 then I would also look at using Adjust/Brightness and Contrast/Fill - Light Clarity. It should give you some 'punch').

I don't have much experience with B&W but go to Effects/Photo Effects and you will see a B&W Film option to play with.

regards

[Barbelfisher]

Brucet thank you for that info, yes i have X6, i shall give that a try...

[MarkZ]

Yes, there are many approaches depending on how fussy you are and how much time you want to spend at it.

Depending on how much sky there is and whether you have a lot of fussy stuff in the photo, her is one approach.

Find a photo that has enough nice sky to cover the one you don't like (Photo B). Duplicate the background in Photo A. Copy Photo B and paste as new layer and move under the duplicate in A. Select the sky in A using one or all of freehand selection, magic wand and smart selection brush. Keep in mind that you can start with replace for the selection then use add and remove to fine tune the selection. Use a couple of pixels of feathering. Delete the selection and Photo B will be visible. Move that layer around so the sky is where you want it. Don't forget to do Select None from the menu.

Alternatively select the bad sky and try Color Changer tool (under the paint can tool) using a colour you like. Play with tolerances. This leaves texture in the sky but is a tricky process, doesn't work often. Use Learning Center palette to help you with the tools.

Many ways to get black and white. From the menu Adjust/Hue Saturation Lightness and click on Colorize. From the menu Adjust/color/Channel Mixer has a monochrome box and you can move the sliders to give a pleasing tone. Or Effects/Photo Effects/Black and white film. You need to experiment to see what works best for you. duplicate the layer before you start so that if you don't like the effect you delete the layer and work with a new duplicate. Once you have the black and white try curves and contrast.

Have fun.

[Tony Lenton]

Hi

You could also try the "Fade Correction" tool from the Adjust>Colour menu. This has brightened up a number of scanned photos that have faded over time.

[MarkZ]

Forgot about having colour show through in the earlier post.

The B&W is in a layer above the background or a colour duplicate layer of the background. To have parts of the picture show colour, erase the B&W layer where you want colour.

Better still, instead of erasing use a mask, either New Mask from the layers palette or menu/Layers/New mask layer. Start with show all. The mask will be white. Use the paint brush (make sure wet look paint is not checked), select black, make sure the mask layer is selected and paint over the areas you want to show. I prefer mask because the opacity can be controlled with different levels of grey and it is easy to go back and correct; you can't do that with erase.

[Barbelfisher]

Hi Mark and Tony,

Thank you for that info guys, i think that i could work out your advice as far as the black and white goes but im afraid i just dont understand layers...

[LeviFiction]

I don't know if these will be of any help to you or not. But I have a few tutorials on layers in PSP. Not as extensive as they should be, but they do cover the basics.

Intro to Layers - http://youtu.be/lGiOWWKLuDo

Layers Palette - http://youtu.be/LF69tccKeNg

Layer Linksets - http://youtu.be/NZRW8S0lJ1k

Layer Groups - http://youtu.be/rJCr5zruv6s

These don't help with adjustment or mask layers. Sorry, just never got around to finishing these.

[Barbelfisher]

Thank you Levi.....