Creating a black and white photograph with an accent color in Photoshop

Although Photoshop can be used for many different projects, its original function of editing and retouching photos is what it is best used for. One of the photo adjustments that has become popular is to turn a photograph black and white and have an accent color pop. It might seem like the only way to do this is to select the object and cut it out of the picture, changing the rest black and white, but there is an even easier - and less destructive - way to do this. In this tutorial, we're going to look at how to create a black and white photo adjustment with an accent color in Photoshop CS4.

First open the file you've chosen to work with in Photoshop. I've chosen to use a stock photo of red tulips from MorgueFile. Next, save it under a different name by clicking File then Save As, so that the original file is unaffected. You want to always get in the habit of saving edited files under a different name so if you want to start over again, you can. This is especially important if the pictures are your own and you have only one copy.

Now right click on the background layer on the right hand side of the workspace in the Layers panel. From the list of options, choose Layer from Background. This unlocks the layer and allows you to make more changes to it, if needed.



We want to make the picture black and white, so to do that non-destructively, we need to add a new adjustment layer. That way, if you don't like the changes, you can easily revert to what you had before by deleting the layer. To create an adjustment layer, go to the top bar and click on Layer, then New Adjustment Layer, then Black and White.



Making sure the Black and White layer is selected, navigate to the Tools panel on the left hand side of the screen and choose the brush tool. Click on the color swatch at the bottom of the Tools panel to bring up the color picker, then choose black. Using a black brush with the adjustment layer and layer mask will "erase" the areas you brush over; however, you can get those areas back by brushing over them with a white brush. Use a bigger brush (like 66px) to get the larger areas; use a smaller brush to get edges and hard-to-reach places.



Brush over every part of the picture that you want to be colorized; once you are finished use the zoom tool to check for places you missed or places that need to be touched up with white to make it as neat as possible.



Touching up photos is easy using adjustment layers and layer masks. Once you have spent some time working with them, you'll soon find you can make almost any photo look professional by using Photoshop and working with adjustment layers.

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