black & white with a bit of color pop

[luvphotography]

I use Elements and wanted to see if anyone can help with the following:

I really like to convert color images into black and white and make a portion of the picture color. How do I make this really pop out. I've seen several photos especially eyes that can not be the originial color. How do I for example make some normally blue eyes look ocean blue?

I'm also experiencing while i'm coloring in the portion to be color a weird color especially around the eyes turning a reddish color. It's almost like a ring around the eyes.

[AndyK]

Maybe you could post a sample image so other forum readers can give you a better answer. We also need to know which editing software you are using. A simple way to have part of the image in color and the rest is black&white is:

Use a selection tool (lasso is a good one) to pick the object you want in color. Once it is selected, copy it to a new layer, making the new layer on top of the old one. Convert the old layer to b&w (various methods are available, it depends on which editing software you are using). Switch to the new layer with your color object, adjust hue/saturation to fit your own vision, flatten the image and save.

That is the quick and dirty method I've used. The color-in-a-b&w image is kinda passe' now, but I'll do it if a client really wants it (and they still do occasionally).
Best,
AndyK

P.S. There are lots of methods and tools available to convert to b&w, with various strengths and weaknesses.

[BobF]

I've got a short tutorial about this on my website. Click on Tutorials at the bottom of the home page and then on the Selective Colour tutorial on the left. That should get you started. There'll be some differences between using PSE, which you have, and PS which is what I use but they should be fairly minimal. Primarily, I don't know in PSE where you call up your colour palettes from.

[JasonOne]

AndyK is right. Maybe it would be better if you'd show us sample photos, for us to
decide on your concerns.

Anyways, here's what by changing a setting in the camera menu to take a black and white photo. Essentially this is a built-in color de-saturation method that removes the color information after the camera takes the picture.

Or you can do by using a photoshop. Even in the professional Photoshop products, there are built-in black and white filters. The benefits to these are they make creating a black and white photo as simple as one click. Granted some of the filters work better than others, but for the most part do a decent job.

Hope it could help you in anyway.