Hi, this is Mama Shan with a video tutorial to show how to selectively colorize an image or selectively reveal color in an image while another part of the image is black and white. And there is a dozen ways to do this but I am going to show you the simplest way that I have been using for quite a while using the gradient map adjustment layer.

And let me just show you some examples of what I mean. We can do an effect like this which is very popular right now, where the background area of an image has the color but the subject matter is in black and white. And then, there is a sort of the traditional way where you have the subject in color and the background black and white, and to that you can add another adjustment layer that will tone down the color even further, just sort of a blend.

So, let us get started with the tutorial and I will show you how it is done. You bring the layers pallet over here. So, we start out with this image and we are not going to have to make a lot of fancy intricate difficult selections because, we are going to use the mask that comes automatically when you use an adjustment or fill layer. And you get the adjustment or fill layers from the bottom of the layers pallet, there is a little black and white circle icon. You click and a menu opens up.

The particular adjustment layer that we are going to select for this exercise is down here in the third section and it is called gradient map. So, it is important that you select this one and not gradient. A lot of times people get these two confused but they react very differently. So, we are going to select gradient map and when that of little dialogue box opens up, we are going to click the preview window here and that opens up the gradient editor box and you are going to select the third icon to the right which says black and white and click OK to close the editor. Now that the map box still remains open, we are just going to do one more thing and that is to check that the dither box. Dither will just make sure that it disperses the gradients so, that there are not any banding issues when you print.

So, click OK. So, now our image looks like it is entirely black and white. Because with this gradient map adjustment and let me just click the visibility icon for the gradient map layer off by clicking there. And we have got our color image back. So, we are going to start painting in our Mask which is non-destructive, our image on the bottom layer, the background layer will always be there.

And what I would like to do get a brush and I click on the brush picker up here after I select the tool. And for this instance, I choose a hard round 19 pixel brush. And if your brush pallet is not in a mode where you can read the types of brushes that are there for example by default, if you have not done anything to Photoshop it, it might in stroke thumbnail. That you can still figure the names of these because a tool tip will pop open but I prefer to view it in small list when you can get to these options for any pallet by clicking the fly out tab here. So, I am going to put it back in small list.

To collapse this pallet, I am just going to click anywhere outside of it and it closes. Now, the 19 inch hard round brush in a high res image looks very small. So, I am immediately going to increase the diameter of my brush by clicking my right bracket key a few times. And then, I am going to start off by concealing the black and white over the subject. Now, since this set of instructions is telling it to be black and white. And I will just even rename that so that you are not confused, so that is a set of black and white instructions here and that is what is being revealed right now, if you look at that mask it is white. And the property of a white in the Mask thumbnail means it is revealing the set of instructions.

So, we want to conceal the black and white set of instructions just over the person. So, we have to paint with black because black conceals and white reveals. So, select your default colors by pressing the letter D to make sure that they are black and white and then you want to switch that black to the foreground position. Now, you can come over here and use that little icon here, the curvy arrows and click it and that is going to switch, every time you click it. But a quicker way is to just simply hit the keyboard letter X, your left hand and that way your right is still in the image window where you can do your editing.