Erasing black and white layer

[AndrewSteele]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to make a black and white image but leave certain aspects of it in colour. I did this yesterday by applying a black and white layer and then using the eraser to get colour back. However, this no longer works for some reason. I have also tried to use the history brush tool but that doesn't work either. I'm kinda a newbie so I think I did something last time that I'm not doing this time.

Running CS3 on Mac OS X.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[gohan2091]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to make a black and white image but leave certain aspects of it in colour. I did this yesterday by applying a black and white layer and then using the eraser to get colour back. However, this no longer works for some reason. I have also tried to use the history brush tool but that doesn't work either. I'm kinda a newbie so I think I did something last time that I'm not doing this time.

Running CS3 on Mac OS X.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

1. Start with a new canvas and open your coloured image.

2. Duplicate the coloured image layer and call it "B&W" or something to that effect.

3. Desaturate this B&W layer (I'm guessing you know how to do this, if not, just ask)

4. Apply a layer mask to this B&W layer. When you do this, the B&W layer will have an extra thing inside (like a white square). Make sure this white sqaure is selected, grab a black brush (Flow and Opacity to 100%) and paint over the image. As you paint over this mask in black, it should reveal colour.

NOTE: You are painting not on the B&W layer, but a mask of the B&W layer.

5. If you want to do the reverse of this, i.e paint parts of the colour image black and white, then simply fill the mask to black instead of white and grab a white paint brush.

If you are confused, post back and I will give screenshots.