Black and White (some colour) help!

[geeteethree]

Alright, ive got a few pictures that look good in black and white but i want to let some colour through to look even better.
I know you can do this on photoshop but is there anyway that its possible on freeware?
like say picasa or another free editing program that anyone knows of
thanks in advance

 

[night86mare]

Alright, ive got a few pictures that look good in black and white but i want to let some colour through to look even better.
I know you can do this on photoshop but is there anyway that its possible on freeware?
like say picasa or another free editing program that anyone knows of
thanks in advance

could you be more specific as to what "letting some colour through" means

if you're talking about plain old desaturation throughout the whole picture, then picasa definitely should be able to do the trick from what i remember of it

other than that, if you want SELECTIVE COLOURING, then i think you might want something more advanced. there are free photoshop-like products out there anyways, GIMP? or something like that

 

[geeteethree]

nah not plain old desaturation but yeah selective colouring.
i will try gimp tho
thanks

 

[drOick]

Sorry, borrow your thread. Anyway is there any other way besides using magic tool to do selective colouring in photoshop?

 

[night86mare]

Sorry, borrow your thread. Anyway is there any other way besides using magic tool to do selective colouring in photoshop?

layers and eraser or what history brush

i only use the first method all the time, it is my favourite method for all things alike, habit already

 

[zac08]

Desat. mask.

Paint over the areas where you want the colour to remain...

 

[fattyboonboon]

Sorry, borrow your thread. Anyway is there any other way besides using magic tool to do selective colouring in photoshop?

Quick mask, pen tool, color range, channels are all possible ways of doing selective coloring. Which one is better depends on what you are trying to do to the picture. Magic tool you are talking about is the magic wand tool? I generally feel that it is a pretty poor selection tool unless used in conjunction with other tools.

 

[calebk]

My method:

http://forums.clubsnap.org/showpost.php?p=3551261&postcount=39

 

[lsisaxon]

Desat. mask.

Paint over the areas where you want the colour to remain...

IMO, the desaturation mask is a better way to do it because you preserve the original image because you work with another layer. If you do anything wrong, you would not have destroyed anything.