It’s a classic effect: the black and white photo with the stark, isolated red. Here’s how to knock out that effect in Photoshop in ten seconds with our (GIMP friendly!) method.
This is a great, simple how-to for the entry level Photoshop user. This method also translates easily into a GIMP technique, as the tools used are similar in both programs. More advanced users can check out our bonus method, or leave their own methods in the comments to help out beginners.
One Method: Lighting Fast Selection of One Color
We’ll start with a good quality photograph. You can use any photo you like and even isolate any color you want—it doesn’t have to be red. But pick a photo that has a good focal point or something you can highlight with your isolated color.
You can grab your eyedropper with shortcut key
. Pick the a color that represents the “average” color you’re trying to isolate. In other words, there are multiple “reds” in this red car, but I pick the sort of “middle red” in the area shown above. Left click the color you want and continue on.
Navigate to Select > Color Range.
You can create a selection here based on wherever Photoshop finds the color you just selected. Take a close look at your preview image as you play with the “Fuzziness” slider. You want
most of the color you’re trying to isolate (in this case, the red in the car) to appear as white in the preview. Press “OK” when you feel you’ve isolated the parts you want to stay colorful.
As an aside for advanced users, you can isolate all of the primary colors using this same tool and method by changing the drop down menu to any of the options shown above. You can safely ignore this screenshot if you’re simply following the beginner how-to.
When you press OK on the Color Range dialog, you’re given a selection of your reds (or whatever color you have chosen to use).
Press
to invert that selection—instead of selecting the reds in the car, we now have the entire rest of the image selected.
to instantly Desaturate this selection. Navigate to Select > Deselect to see what you’ve done. Since this has all been done in a single background layer, make sure you use Save As to save an alternate copy of your photograph, and not overwrite your precious original!
Note for GIMP users: You can achieve similar selections and effects by using the “Select by Color” tool, which can be found under Tools > Selection Tools > By Color Select. You can set your Threshold in your toolbar, shown above right, and get similar results in the “Selection Editor” panel, shown above. Open this panel by navigating to Select > Selection Editor.
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