cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
I made this as an example for a new ds106 Visual Assignment, Splash The Color– this is the effect of accentuating parts of an image by reducing it to black and white, and then re-coloring or restoring the color of parts of the photo. See examples from Photobucket or many groups on flickr.
Color splash is a technique to emphasize details- you remove all color from a photo, and then restore original color to a single object, e.g. a green apple on a table. Think of the Girl in the red dress from Schindler’s List.
You can do this in a number of ways with photo editing software or using mobile apps. The answer lies in the Google
The tags for this assignment are: VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments340
I’ve come across a few variations on how to do this, the easiest (how I did it) via Photoshop and the history brush, a slient demo is here:
In my words–
- Open the color image in Photoshop
- As a precaution duplicate the layer so you are working on a copy
- Select Image -> Adjustments -> Black and White to remove all color. You might tweak the sliders to give the image a boost, or more contrast.
- Zoom in on the area you will work with, you want to be able to get close to the edges.
Selcet the History Brush tool.- Select a brush size from the top menu, preferably with a feathered edge.
- Start brushing the object you want to colorize; as you paint, the original color is painted back in. Its better to work from the middle out. As you get to the edge, make your brush smaller to fine tune the margins (you know, all that old coloring book stay inside the lines stuff)
- Do just enough to bring out the detail of one object, or a group of similar object.
- Save, post, and blog about it!
A more complicated approach would be to paint an object a different color than the original…. That might be for another day.
I reckon Frank Miller’s Sin City comic (and the movie adaptation) also does the colour splash thing quite well.
I think I’m going to splash some colour around too!
🙂
Thank you for the tutorial! The video goes a bit fast for learning, but I can stop and review, plus your written instructions. I can hardly wait until I have a moment to open this bag of gold!