Selective Negative/Color image using a Mask layer. in Photoshop

I will be doing this tutorial in Paint Shop Pro, but the steps should be about the same in most other photo editors.

Always start by duplicating your image and closing the first one. This way you always have the original to come back to.

Start with the image you want. Make sure your layers palette is open.

In layers, click on the background layer, and convert to a raster layer. (In PSP, right click, to get the menu, then select the option you want.)

Next, rename that layer to “original”. It helps to keep track of your different layers.

Now, duplicate that layer, and rename to black and white.
Change the 2nd layer to “black and white”. I do this by removing all saturation.
In PSP, to to Adjust, Hue and Saturation, Hue/Saturation/Lightness.

In that window, leave hue and lightness at 0, but set the saturation at -100%

Now add a mask layer. (I think in PS they are called adjustment layers) In PSP go to the layers tab, select New Mask Layer, and click on hide all.

After doing this, the image still looks like the black and white layer. But you now have a mask layer just above it.

At this point and periodically during your editing, you want to save your image, so if your computer or program crashes, you don’t have to go all the way back and start over. You only have to go back to the last save image. Make sure you save in a format that keeps all your layers for you, that doesn’t merge them all to one layer.
While on the mask layer, using black at 100% opacity, paint over the area that you want colored.

The nice thing about using a mask to bring out your color, is that you are not harming your original layer. All you are doing is changing the opacity of that part of the layer, depending on the shades from black to white that you use. As you see, in the image above, I went outside of the flower, and got part of the green background. To fix this, just change the brush to white and paint over the green. That portion of the image will once again become grayscale. Switch back to black to continue working on the flower.

Because you are only changing the opacity where the black and white are, this gives you a special flexibility.

If you look closely, you will see that part of the image is fairly sharp edged, and part is more out of focus. Where the image is sharp, I keep my color edge sharp. But where it is out of focus, I make my color edge very soft, to match the image. Rather than trying to keep changing the softness of the brush at this level, I use the smudge brush to soften the edge of the color. You can see the difference on the bud in the background, and in the flower on the right. The bud edge color in the back is very, very soft, just as the focus on the bud is. But on the flower to the right, the focus is medium, between the sharp and the out of focus. So here the color edge should also be a medium blend. This makes for a much more natural transition.

Here is the final comparison.

To do a negative/inverted image, you basically do the same thing. Only instead of making the 2nd layer grayscale, you either make it negative image/inverted, depending on the program you use.

This first comparison with the original shows the edge of the leaf with a very soft blend to the center, just for something different.

This 2nd comparison shows two more traditional versions, one with just the water drops the normal color, the 2nd with both the water drops and the leaves the normal color

With a mask, your possibilities are endless… just chose what you want.

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For more Photoshop Tips and tutorials:www.deepetch.com

You can find Original Tutorial here:http://www.worth1000.com/tutorials/162271/how-to-do-a-selective-negative-or-color-image-using-a-mask-layer

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