Two Friends

[Mr. Quebec]

I was trying something I’m new to, editing a picture with a B&W background and a color subject / point of interest.
Are the eyes too blue? Wrong subject? Would it be better if the whole cats were in color?
I’m dropping the original picture too.

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[Ezra Morley]

To me, the eyes look too blue, rather unnatural. Of course if it’s purely artistic, then “natural” isn’t necessarily what you’re looking for.

Just curious, how did you do the selective coloring? What software did you use?

I’ve done very little with selective coloring, so this is interesting! Just for fun, I borrowed your picture, and made my own version of it… I was just going to make it a little less saturated, but I started playing with colors, and managed to get green and blue eyes! The funny thing is, I used the exact same shade of blue for both cats!

EDIT: Here’s the one with both cat’s blue. If you look closely though, you can tell that even the blues are different shades! I have no idea why.

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[Mr. Quebec]

Just curious, how did you do the selective coloring? What software did you use?

I used Gimp :), I used the mask, colored the eyes, inversed the selection, and then edited in B&W, so that all the picture except the selected zones was in B&W.
I admit I used heavy saturation and bright, unnatural colors to create a contrast with the rest of the picture. I agree that two different colors of eyes of the cats is better than two identical colors.

EDIT: Here’s the one with both cat’s blue. If you look closely though, you can tell that even the blues are different shades! I have no idea why.

Maybe that’s because the eyes were originally green on one cat and blue on the other.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 9 months ago by .

[Ezra Morley]

Ok, I wondered if you used GIMP, and if so, how you did it! It’s amazing, but you could probably figure out a dozen ways to do the same thing in GIMP.

First, I edited the picture to B&W in Lightroom, then I opened it in GIMP to add the blue in. I just added a transparent layer, then painted some blue on it onto the eyes. Then I set the layer mode to Overlay, and erased the blue around the edges so that only the eyes were blue. I then decreased the opacity a bit, so they weren’t quite so saturated.

Maybe that’s because the eyes were originally green on one cat and blue on the other.

I thought of that too, but if it’s already converted to B&W, how would there be any yellow in it? I don’t know.

[James Staddon]

Have to say, @Mr.-Quebec that I love this shot. It’s very simple, the depth of field is very pleasing, and there’s a pleasing contrast between light/dark, soft/hard throughout. I like that one cat is looking at you, and I also like the leg positionings. A good capture. I also like that you can tell they are in a barn. That’s where cats belong. 🙂

I would have to agree with @buddingphotographer that the eyes are indeed too blue in the B&W version. I like the artistic idea, but would just tone down the saturation. The color version looks really nice to me.

And @buddingphotographer, if you didn’t already know, selective coloring is pretty easy to do in Lightroom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH2NW-jjrtQ

[Sarah.Brown]

@Mr. Quebec, I have to say that I like the color version better! I see even light threw out the shot which is pleasing to the eye for this particular photograph, I can also tell that there is nice dynamic range taking place in this photo as well as soft and hard light! The quality of light is very nice in this shot! All though i’m not much of a cat person I do have to say well done!

[Ezra Morley]

Here’s a version edited only with Lightroom, @JamesStaddon. I didn’t think that Lightroom would be the tool for this, since I was not only “selectively” coloring, but adding color. GIMP/Photoshop is usually the tool of choice for that sort of thing. However, after some experimentation, I figured out how to get basically the same results. I didn’t watch the tutorial you mentioned, as I wanted to see if I could figure it out before I watched it. 🙂

The only thing is, when doing the “selective coloring” thing in Lightroom, you lose control of the B&W conversion process. In other words, Lightroom selects what it thinks is best for the B&W conversion, and you can’t really do anything about it. You can adjust the black and white points, but you can’t adjust the way each color turns to B&W like I usually like to do. (At least the way I did it; possibly there is an alternative way to do it, but so far I haven’t thought of it.)

P.S. I also rather liked the color version of this picture! I’m not a big fan of B&W photography, but in this case, I think it’s a good candidate for B&W also.

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[James Staddon]

Good description of the light @Sarah.Brown. Keep looking for it. Someone named Aaron Rose said “In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.”

And I love the spirit, @buddingphotographer. You’ll probably remember those LR controls a lot longer now that you have figured them out yourself. And suffice it to say that Lightroom does provide control over the color to B&W conversion . . . I’ll let you figure that one out too. 🙂

[Ezra Morley]

@JamesStaddon, I realize that Lightroom provides control over the color to B&W conversion, however, the technique I used for the selective coloring didn’t allow that. The only way I could do it in Lightroom at all to get the selective coloring, was to simply de-saturate, instead of use the B&W conversion tools.

[James Staddon]

You got me there! You’re right, @buddingphotographer, I hadn’t thought it through that far.

LR provides control over color to B&W conversion, but once it’s converted to B&W, no color information can be drawn back out, for the selective coloring technique. As far as I know, Lightroom only leaves you two options for selective coloring.

1. Convert to B&W and add color back in selectively using the Color option available in the Brush Tool.
2. Use the Brush Tool to paint the entire picture at -100 Saturation and then bring color back in selectively by erasing.

The first option provides complete control over B&W conversion.

The second option provides realistic colors in the selective coloring area.

As far as I know, LR doesn’t let you do both, just like you said, @buddingphotographer! What a discovery. I never played around with this before so didn’t know. I guess you just have to decide beforehand which is more important, B&W conversion or realistic colors in the selective color area, and choose a method based on that decision.

Here is an example that shows the difference between the two methods. The first is the original picture; the second is using method 1 from above; the third is using method 2 from above.

For this particular picture, I think Method 2 looks better. Lightroom’s default B&W conversion did a pretty good job on the B&W side of things, and I like the more natural, realistic, multi-colors apparent in the barn.

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