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Color Isolation using ACDSee Photo Editor
Online Version:
Color Isolation
Our goal is to color a specific part of a photo:
- Open a photo in Photo Editor that you would like to color a specific part of. Save the file under a new name to avoid mistakenly saving over the original image.
- Click on the photo in the work area or on the layer in the object palette to select it.
Ctrl C (to copy), then Ctrl V (to paste) This will create a new layer on top of the same photo.
Click on the top layer in the object palette to select it. Now you have two options and try each one using Undo (Ctrl Z) between each one to see which you prefer.
This is easy but can be more harsh. Go to Adjustments | Color | Greyscale
This allows for more flexibility. Go to Adjustments | Color | Hue/Saturation
- Move the Saturation slider to the left, and play with the effects. For the example image at the beginning of the tutorial, I used the 'greyscale feature'.
For the rest of this example I am using the 2nd option & used a saturation level of -37. The effect is that some of the background color remains (red in the shed & green in the leaves) Your Object Palette will look like this now:
On the top image in the object palette (the black & white one), double click in the white mask box to create a double frame around it.
- Now we will adjust the brush settings:
- Change the brush to a larger size somewhere between 40 - 50
- Use an opacity of 50% to 100% depending on the effect you'd like.
Change color to black by clicking on top right of color chooser, and choose black, then click OK
On your photo where you want the color to be, start working in the center. Do small areas & then it's easy to use Edit | Undo if you accidently get into an area you didn't want colored. (The area I worked on was large, so I used a brush size of 100 to begin with & did this area).
- Change brush size to 30 or something manageable to do out the outside areas. Use small strokes so that undo can be used if needed. Here is what the mask looks like when you're done:
- An optional step, which can soften the greyscale option, is click on the black and white layer at the very bottom of object palette, change the opacity of that layer to around 80% for a soft muted color.
- And the finished photo (save as a jpeg). (The background here is a bit different than the first one, but I like it!)
