Playing with color

So a few days ago, I ran across a link to Kuriositas — specifically, a post on selective color photography. I’m completely blanking on the artist who I’ve seen these by (Mom? A little help?), but I’ve always thought the results striking.

I decided to experiment.

I do all my photo manipulation on-line, using Pixlr’s photo editor. The process is simple: open your photo, duplicate it, desaturate the duplicate, then erase the parts of the duplicate where you want the color to show through. (Okay, that’s the tough part, since you have to watch your edges.)

And the results of my first experiment:

Selective color photograph of red boats.

Boats at Emerald Lake.

I probably won’t play with it much more any time soon, since Pixlr is Flash based, and Flash causes issues with this computer, but it’s nice to know that the theory is so simple for such a striking result. (Also, yes, I know I didn’t get all the edges done — see previous comment about Flash.)

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8 Comments

  1. Kathleen Hammond

    Ansel Adams. There is an exhibit at the Museum until about mid-August.

    • I thought Ansel Adams only did black & white — he wasn’t who I was thinking of. I meant the one who does the b&w pics of the kids, with like a pink rose or something.

      But the exhibit is good to know about; we’ll have to go this summer! . . . Dad would’ve loved it.

  2. Kathleen Hammond

    Do you mean Kim Anderson? The kids have some color in their attire, too.

    • That’s the one! I was reasonably certain it was Kim something. Yes — using this technique, I could do those sorts of pictures.

  3. Kathleen Hammond

    The girl on my mug and my bookmark is by Kim Anderson.

  4. Kathleen Hammond

    Cool. Go for it!

  5. Looks like fun, but that’s not the sort of detailed work that I like doing. I’ll leave it for you to show me cool stuff. 😉

    • LOL! A friend tells me his camera has a setting that lets him do it when pushing a button — not quite as flexible (only one color, for example), but much easier.

      Of course, I’m trying to think of any stories I might be able to use this idea on the covers of.

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