Partial Color Imaging with the History Brush
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Yesterday, you saw the tutorial on how to use the history brush in order to achieve a partial color image. Hopefully, you ran to your computer and tried it out. Believe me, it’s addicting. As promised, I’ve provided my entry into the history brush olympics.
This is a shot of some marine buoys from Key West that are hanging on a palm tree in the front yard. (I know what you’re thinking, but I can say that they make us feel like we aren’t landlocked.) Using the steps outlined in the video, I desaturated the image then brushed the color back in with the history brush. That’s all. Notice how even a small amount of color can double the impact of the image, while providing a focal point for the eye.
Now run off and try it out. It’s an easy tool to use and provides instant satisfaction and great results. Let me know how it goes!


















This post has one comment
July 29th, 2008
Great pic… effective in its subtlety.
Have you ever used the channel mixer/gradient map adjustment layers instead of straight desaturation to convert to B&W? Lots of control over tone and contrast, even after the adjustment (that kills the history brush option, but you can use a mask to get to the color beneath).
Bill (not Jill)s last blog post..The Sunday Funnies
Not a whole lot. I usually desaturate then work with the curves, but for this one I didn’t. I’ve taken the saturation down manually as well via the Hue/Saturation sliders, but that’s about it. I’ll give the channel mixer a try, thanks. I’m always looking for new Photoshop tricks.
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