Photoshop Effects Black&White over Color and Vice Versa

Here is another not so short tutorial on photoshop, this time we will see how to use the B&W effect (like in the previous post) and mix & match it with simple cut and paste to make a cool picture

As usual you will require a copy of photoshop and a picture to play around with, for purpose of this small tutorial i have decided to use this picture of a cute little kitten so lets get started shall we



1. Open the image in photoshop and press CTRL+A (to select all) than press CTRL+C (Copy) once you have copied the image press CTRL+N (To open new image) here what you will do is set the color mode to gray scale, see the following image for illustaration.



Once you have a new blank window open press CTRL+V to paste the image into place, Notice it would be black and white now.

2. Now you have two images, one in color and one in black and white, go to black and white image select all by CTRL+A and than copy it to clip board by CTRL+C now go to the color image and paste the image there by pressing CTRL+V. You will notice in the layers dialogue box (towards your right as in the image below) two layers one in b&w (on top) and the original image in color below it. Refer to the image below



3. Now select magic wand (either by pressing W on your keyboard or by clicking on the icon in the toolbar as shown in the image above) What magic wand does is select pixels by color matching and it selects an area with matching color. There are other methods of selecting and editing image but we shall use magic wand in this tutorial.

Once you click magic wand and click on the image it will result in a abrupt selection such as shown in the image above, It may look complicated but don't freak out.

5. You will notice that a lot of places outside and even inside the kitten are selected, Our aim in this excersise is to roughly select the outline of the kitten, For that purpose we will now edit our selection. For this purpose at least my favorite way of achieving it is to use Marquee tool (Press M on the keyboard). Once you have the tool selected you can Add further area to your selection or you can Remove area from the selection, This can be achieved by press ALT (You will see a small - sign) to remove selection or you can use CTRL (You will see a small + sign) to add to your selection. Play around by adding and subtracting the selection till you approximately have the outline of the kitten selected. It may sound hard but it is not give it a shot. Refer to the image below.

6. Now the hardest part is over so congratulate yourself, You can pull off two effects here,

    1. You can make kitten black and white and background colored
    2. You can make kitten colored and background black and white.

We shall see both of the effects

6.1 With the selection which you made back in step 5 simply press the DEL key and you will get a nice black and white kitty cat with colored background like the image below

6.2 Now lets revert back and try another effect, For that purpose locate the "History" box on your right, History keeps track of all the changes you have to your image, You can set how much do you want to keep in history by changing the photoshop preferences. For this excersise you need to go one step back so simply click on the previous item in the history box to go back to previous state. Refer to the image below

 

 

6.3 Now we have to try the other effect, Go to SELECT menu and than select INVERSE, Now simply press the DEL key and presto you will see the kitten in black and white while having the kitten in color like in the image below.

It's not rocket science, What we did was simply delete something from the black and white layer so that we can see what is underneath that layer (which would be identical color copy) so it gives you the effect of having black and white over color and vice versa. This is a very popular effecct widely used by many studios and they charge you an ample amount of money to do something simple as this.

This was a very vague overview how to pull this effect off, If you have any questions or querries than do let me know will be happy to answer! :)

In Honor Of George Carlin

Around a decade back on one fine day on #mp3tunes (Undernet) I was introduced to a name which i had never heard by a lovely lady who used to go by the nick ^Tali. This name was George Carlin and ^Tali literally forced me to download it and hear it, I can't recall laughing so hard ever in my life and that was the time when i got hooked into this gentlemen named George Carlin. Although he is not anymore with us but his legacy remains. I will share with you the piece which got me hooked, It's called "Airline Announcements"

Mind you it is PG and NSF (Not Suitable For Work) unless you are wearing headphones, If you consider yourself a person who gets offended quiet easily than hear it at your own risk, However if you are a "normal" person than clicky clicky on the links below! :)

Part-1




Part-2

Few Things Just Don't Get Old

I remember when i was growing up we used to be all hyped up about Airwolf, Knight Rider, The Master, A-Team, Flash and God knows how many other programs but now when i look back at MOST of those programs i laugh at myself and think "Damn how stupid we were to believe in that" but than there are few memoriable programs from the past which you still would love to see and enjoy. My son loves one such franchies and it's one of those very rare programs which me, my wife and son all love to sit and watch together without any fights for the remote lol

I am talking about none other than good ol Tom & Jerry here, the fun filled cartoon roaming around Tom the poor kitty and Jerry the ever witty mouse, I doubt you will find a living soul on this planet who have not seen this in his life either on TV or on some T-Shirt or bag or what not.

In case you don't know Tom & Jerry was created by William Hanna and Joesph Barbera in early 1940's and since than there have been many versions and stories including Tom & Jerry Kids but the fact remains that nothing comes near to the original episodes when it comes to originality and humor.

But wait a second there are few more programs still on my hard drive which i watch again and again (and again!) and they keep making me laugh the same way they did a decade or so back.
The series i am going to talk about now is a comedy serial which without a doubt is my ever favourite TV show EVER, you can imagine that i have all it's seasons ripped on hard drive, have boxset DVD's and saving to buy them on BlueRay. Before i proceed further i must give credit to Saima Uzair (She is married now so her last name would be something else, She was sister of a buddy of mine Danish Uzair) for introducing me to this out of world program.

Let me give you a hint, If you have ever watched the show or have followed it than this line would ring a bell .... "How Ya Doin!" No? were you living under a rock? or were in hibernation? or were chased by aliens around in circles? Damn! okay one more hint for you ... Chandler, Joey, Ross, Monica, Pheobe, Racheal? 

Yes i am talking about none other than F.R.I.E.N.D.S a show about friends which ran for around 10 seasons and still have a huge fan base, Infact there are still petetions running to have more seasons of the show. If you have none watched it ever than do yourself a favour, Watch It, Chances are you WILL like it.

Ross and Monica are brothers and sisters, Chandler is Ross's best friend and he also happens to live across Monica's apartment. Joey is Chandler's room mate and have slightly better IQ than George.W.Bush, Pheobe is Monica's friend and so is Racheal, Racheal is introduced in the first episode as a run away bride. The series have its share amount of love interests and hilarious situations.


There are few other shows I would like to mention here

1. Perfect Strangers.
2. Fresh Prince Of Bel Air.
3. ALF

And few from current / new generation i love to watch are

1. Prison Break (First season was where this show shined and than it kept going down the drain)
2. Boston Legal (William Shatner at his BEST in my opinion)
3. CSI: Vegas / Newyork (CSI Miami is for Baywatch fans if you ask me)
4. The Unit (Sad that it only lasted four seasons)

Subway anyone?

Today i was in a BIG argument with my friends which eventually i lost due to "majority wins" factor (GOD i HATE democracy) the whole fight (if you choose to call it, although it was not sizzling as Kashmala vs Dr Firdaus .... slightly offtopic but Kashmala vs Marvi Memon cat fight would be a freaking pay per view event lol) was on where to go and eat and unfortunately i was the ONLY person in favor of Subway *sigh* and others wanted to go and crappy ROLLS from Hot N Spicy.

Let me admit it, few years back i used to hate Subway myself but that's because i went there once and let THEM made the sandwhich for me (which sucked) i used to avoid the place like plague until my boss took me by force (Work Harrasement i tell!) and that was the time i got the sandwhich made on my own and it tasted good!

Now i am hooked to the place and go there couple of times in a month and enjoy Italian BMT (Yummy) and although i have had Chicken Garlic Mayo Rolls i think i still have craving for Subway ... i think i am going to sneak out while my wife is sleeping and grab a quick bite ;)

Are you a subway fan? Drop in a comment and let me know :)

Simple Photoshop Tricks For You

Have you ever thought how these big names such as Jimmy, Dossani, Studio-9 etc manage to come up with such kick ass pictures? Ever wonder how come you managed to look so good in that picture? well welcome to the amazing powers of Photoshop. I am a hobbyist and i use Photoshop from time to time. Today i am going to introduce you to few tips and tricks to give that UMPH! to your images.

I am in no means an expert and I will try to explain things in simple language (no techie lingo) etc in this tutorial (if you decide to call it that)

Black And White Effect

A simple color photograph can have beautiful impact by simply making it black and white, for that purpose what you need is a color photograph and photoshop (i am using version CS2)

1. Open photoshop and open any image in it, for the purpose of this tutorial i have choose this picture of a very cute baby.



2. Once the image is open go to Image -> Mode -> Gray Scale



3. Photoshop will ask you "Discard Color Information" select Yes and you are done and will be presented with the image looking like this


There you go it was so simple to convert a color picture into black and white



We will further explore and see how we can exploit this effect to create even more further effects such as sepia and all