Color Options

Making a Black and White Photo

Adobe Photoshop Elements makes it easy to turn a color photo into a black and white photo. Simply open the color photo you want to use. The photo I used was Marilyn Monroe shown below:

Make sure to duplicate it so that you have the original if something goes wrong. To duplicate, Select File > Duplicate and a copy of your picture will appear in the photo tray as well as in a new document:

Select the duplicated photo and click on Enhance > Convert to Black and White:

This opens the Convert to Black and White dialog box which allows you to compare and choose different conversion presets represented by image styles. Select a style and then use the intensity slider and color adjustments to fine-tune the conversion. Try different styles, adjustment intensity, and adjustments until you get the picture the way you want it.

Click OK to accept the settings. Your picture should now be black and white as shown below:

We now can add color to emphasize a portion of the picture. We will now use a selection tool to select her lips and then color them red. Select the Polygon Lasso tool:

Zoom in on the lips by clicking on the zoom tool and select the amount of magnification from the zoom options palette:

Now left click around the outside of her lips and once you get back to where you started the selection the following icon will appear:

Your selection should now look like the picture below:

Now we want to select the inside of the lips. Click the subtract from selection option on the polygon selection tool palette:

Now click on the inside of the lips the same way as you selected the outside of the lips but double click at the end of the selection. Your selected area should now look like the picture below:

The next step is to move the selection to another layer. By clicking the Ctrl + J shortcut keys you will jump the selection to a newly created layer. Now we need to select the lips again. This time we will use the magic wand tool with the tolerance set to 100:

Select the lips on the new layer by clicking on it. Now click the paint brush tool to select it and select a red color from the color box:

Now pour the red into the selection. Your picture should look like the photo below:

At this point the lips don't look real. On the layers palette select color from the blending mode drop down options.

The last thing we need to do is turn down the opacity until you get the desired affect:

This is my finished product: