colourise part of a black and white image

[Ken Veal]

Thanks for the info JoeB
I went Adjust-Brightness and Contrast-Curves .In the Curves window ,I clicked the contrast button, reset, then clicked the Levels button. They both had the effect of darkening the background but making to pumpkin too red .Below is from the Help screen
"Automatically adjust the photo’s contrast.
Click the Contrast button in the Auto group box.
Note: You can use this button when you’re satisfied with the photo’s colors but want to improve the contrast

Automatically adjust both the contrast and the color.
Click the Levels button in the Auto group box"

I went Adjust-Colours-Fade Correction. In that window I reduced the amount of correction to 7 because otherwise the background had a purple hue. This still gave the pumpkin too much red but was acceptable I guess.
But then went Adjust,Colur-red green blue and gave red a -11 value which got the pumpkin colour better and green a -7 value to correct a green hue in the clouds







.

[Richard]

Draw the mask on the pumpkin again, and invert it. Then you can adjust the grayscale background without the adjustments affecting the pumpkin (this type of operation is the reason masks exist).

[JoeB]

When I am doing similar work on an image I have a workflow that makes this easy to do - and I save a copy of the image in .pspimage format to preserve the layers.

In my case, I would have started the process on the color image by selecting the pumpkin with a selection tool with necessary adjustments to feathering as needed. Then I would promote that selection to a layer, which would put the orange pumpkin on its own layer above the original image. Then highlight the original layer in the Layers Palette and do Select None to remove the selection marquee. At this point you can simply desaturate (i.e., make a greyscale looking image) of the complete original. You'll still see the colored pumpkin because it is on a layer above the original (unless you toggle off it's visibility in the Layers palette). Then apply the Curves adjustment to that desaturated layer. The attachments show my curves settings for this image and the resultant image with orange pumpkin.

This procedure simplifies the process IMHO because, once you have your pumpkin selected and on a new layer, you can then make any contrast adjustments you wish to the original layer without worrying about inverting selections or selections at all, because whatever happens to the pumpkin in that layer will be hidden with the nice, orange pumpkin layer.

So, for future use - and in fact to re-do your image with perhaps more acceptable results - you should get in the habit of working with layers and, when possible, using layers as a means of isolating one or more parts of an image from other parts of the image. One of the problems with having a selection and then inverting that selection to work on another part of the image is that the anti-alias and feathering will also apply to the inversion, and can often result in unexpected results around the edges of the image around which the inverted selection is applied.

And the reason that Fade Correction caused a purple tinge when you used it was because it was trying to deal with an image that was mostly desaturated greyscale as well as having a full color object in the image. If you were to first have the pumpkin on it's own layer and then completely desaturate the original background image you can then use Fade Correction with no color tinge. It will work fairly well at its default setting but does not provide the nice contrast that the Curves adjustment does. It's something you can test out yourself.

[Ken Veal]

Thank you both for the response.Appreciate your time and trouble JoeB, as you probably realise this is all new to me , have been using Paint Shop Pro and Video Studio for years now and there always seems to be something new to learn.It has been made a lot easier because of all the help I have had from these Forums.
Ken

[JoeB]

JoeB, as you probably realise this is all new to me , have been using Paint Shop Pro and Video Studio for years now and there always seems to be something new to learn.It has been made a lot easier because of all the help I have had from these Forums.Ken

I've been using PSP since Jasc's version 4, and for many years used it to produce graphics for professional reproduction. And I still often don't have a handle on the best or most efficient method - or even know what method - to use to obtain the best result I want or close to the result I want (and want to point out that often there is not just one way to achieve those goals!). So I am still often asking for help from those in this forum who have a deeper knowledge of such stuff than I do or likely expect to have.

The only other thing I can suggest is that, if you have the time, just play around with some images and the various tools to get at least a better familiarity with the program and its potential. Familiarity with using layers and selections is a very good step in making effective use of other manipulative tools available in PSP. (As a note, I look at masks as similar to Selections in Edit Selection mode, but that's just my way of perceiving them.)

[JoeB]

JoeB, as you probably realise this is all new to me , have been using Paint Shop Pro and Video Studio for years now and there always seems to be something new to learn.It has been made a lot easier because of all the help I have had from these Forums.Ken

I've been using PSP since Jasc's version 4, and for many years used it to produce graphics for professional reproduction. And I still often don't have a handle on the best or most efficient method - or even know what method - to use to obtain the best result I want or close to the result I want (and should stress that often there is not just one way to achieve those goals!). So I am still often asking for help from those in this forum who have a deeper knowledge of such stuff than I do or likely expect to have.

The only other thing I can suggest is that, if you have the time, just play around with some images and the various tools to get at least a better familiarity with the program and its potential. Familiarity with using layers and selections is a very good step in making effective use of other manipulative tools available in PSP. (As a note, I look at masks as similar to Selections in Edit Selection mode, but that's just my way of perceiving them.)