You have seen the really cool pictures that are black and white with a little bit of color. Like seen below. My little girl is holding her kitten, only the pick dress is in color. This is very simple to do in Digital Image Pro and Suite. The screen shots you will see are from Digital Image Suite 2006. But this technique can be done in pretty much all versions of Digital Image by Microsoft. There are many ways to do this. I will be giving you two very easy example of how to do this.

Open up your image that you want to work with.

Then crop the image to the desired size. In this case I will be working with an image of my son running. In this example I will show you how to make the entire picture black and white, and then bring back the color of his orange shirt.

Duplicate your image. File > Duplicate

You now will see two images in your files stack. If you do not see your files on your screen click on files as seen by the common tasks in the tool bar.

Your stack will still only have one image in it.

Drag your new copy, called unsaved project 1, onto your screen. This will layer the new image over the original image. You will now see two images stacked on top of each other in the stacks.

Your image will not be lined up so you will have to drag up to align it with the other image.

With the top image selected (click on the top image in the stack), go to Effects > Black and White. This step changes your top image to black and white.

Now we will use the transparency brush to brush away part of the top black and white photo to let the color show below. There are many ways to do this. I will show you two ways.

First zoom in your image, so it is easier to work. You can do this by moving the slider on the top of your screen.

Use your move bar on the right and bottom of the screen to move your image. Do not drag the image from the screen, because this will move only the top layer (you will then lose your alignment).

Now we will start working with the brush. Effects > Transparency > Transparency Brush

You can adjust you brush size and hardness and softness within this box.

Slide the transparency over to 100 to erase all of the black and white. You can play around with this to just erase a slight amount. As you start to paint away, click on your mouse often. You can then click on undo last action to take yourself back one step. Move your sliders around to make the brush smaller and larger for tight areas. When finished simply click on done.

The second method may be easier. In this example. Place your color image on the top of the stack. Use your magic wand tool to select the area of color you want to maintain. You can also use your selection tools.

In my example I will use the magic wand because I just want to select all the orange color from his shirt. The magic wand tool box show up. You can adjust the tolerance (how close the match is to the color). This is fun to play with. Make sure you have the color image selected when you start working with the magic wand and selection tool. You can tell you have this image (or layer) selected by the blue box in the stack.

If you did not get you entire selection. you can click on other areas to select more color. Remember to use the undo function if you get to much.

Once you are done, drag your color layer (image) below the black and white image in the stack.

You will notice that the selection is still active (matching ants around the area). Make sure you click on the black and white layer. This will make it the active layer you will be working on again.

Again select your transparency brush, paint away. You will notice that as you paint, the brush only paints away the area within your selection.

To remove the selection (marching ants), click on view > selection (or Control H)

Finished picture compared to original picture...... FUN!!!! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Click here for a printable copy