How do I paste a color picture into a grayscaled layer?

[elPepin]

I started with a snake skin pattern that had different shades of brown and turned it into black and white by using Image>Mode>Grayscale. It was perfect but now I can't introduce a golden frame and paste it into a layer without it turning silver (surely an effect of the grayscale). When I try to go back to deselected it just didn't remove the check mark. How could I "turn off" the grayscale on one layer only? I was tempted to simply save the image as a Jpeg and then start again but...I want to learn so show me how I could have achieve the black and white effect yet avoiding this conundrum!

 

[MrToM]

...using Image>Mode>Grayscale...

This is your problem.

This sets the whole document to greyscale.

You'll need to put that back to whatever it was before and use an adjustment layer to change an individual layer to B&W.

The adjustment layers can be found at the bottom of the layers panel...the very middle icon.
Select the layer you want turn B&W, then click that icon and choose the 'Black White...' adjustment.
Then right click the layer and choose 'Create Clipping Mask'....this will constrain the adjustment to just the layer below it....

...then adjust to taste if needed.

You could also Desaturate the layer if you wanted.
Check out the 'Hue Saturation' adjustment layer too.....lowering the saturation will also give a greyscale result.

Regards.
MrToM.

 

[chrisdesign]

MrTom is right. Image>Mode>Greyscale sets the image to a black+white image.

But now just change it back to RGB, it still looks the same but now it is a color image again that looks like a greyscale image.
No problem to place a colored golden frame on a layer.

 

[MrToM]

...But now just change it back to RGB...

I said that.....but didn't specify which mode as there is no way of knowing what mode they were in before they changed it.

A small point but it may ruin their day if they were originally in CMYK....unlikely, granted, but you never know.

Regards.
MrToM.

 

[elPepin]

This is your problem.

This sets the whole document to greyscale.

You'll need to put that back to whatever it was before and use an adjustment layer to change an individual layer to B&W.

The adjustment layers can be found at the bottom of the layers panel...the very middle icon.
Select the layer you want turn B&W, then click that icon and choose the 'Black White...' adjustment.
Then right click the layer and choose 'Create Clipping Mask'....this will constrain the adjustment to just the layer below it....

...then adjust to taste if needed.

You could also Desaturate the layer if you wanted.
Check out the 'Hue Saturation' adjustment layer too.....lowering the saturation will also give a greyscale result.

Regards.
MrToM.

Thank you so much for the thorough instructions. It sure sounds simple when you know what you are doing!

 

[elPepin]

Thank you for that key detail! chrisdesign

 

[MrToM]

No worries.

Regards.
MrToM.

 

[chrisdesign]

Thank you for that key detail! chrisdesign

You're very welcome.
If it works, don't hesitate to show your image here.