Help with PSE Selctions

[AceOfHobbes]

I am trying my 1st B&W where I am bringing some of the colour back.

But I am running into a few issues. I have created a separate layer in order to paint the red bridge back in, but the edges of the rail are giving me fits (you can see in the photo that the edges of the rail are still B&W).

I am using the various selection tools to select the area that I want back in colour, but on the edges the lighting is making selection difficult.

Is it mainly just zoom in/out and fiddle with the selection tolerances or is their an easier way. I have tried just painting the colour back in without a mask but that seems tedious and rather difficult with a mouse.

Also not sure what to do about the plantlife that crosses in front. Would it be better to just remove it or leave it in B&W?


Any comments would be appreciated.

Ron

[pnodrog]

Are you using a layer mask? Also try the polygon lasso tool to either add to the selection by holding down the shift key or subtract from the selection pressing down the Alt key. If you are as fussy as I am I have not yet found an easy way of perfecting a difficult selection but I have got smarter and faster with all the practice.

I like the concept but it may be a bit more striking if you used Hue/saturation adjust to increase the saturation and lighten the red a fraction.

[xpatUSA]

Did you have the "aliasing" box checked when you selected the bridge? I would have thought that would be undesirable?

At 400%, there's some horizontal and vertical color artifacts near the bridge in the B&W zone - which may, or mat not, be a clue.

[AceOfHobbes]

Are you using a layer mask? Also try the polygon lasso tool to either add to the selection by holding down the shift key or subtract from the selection pressing down the Alt key. If you are as fussy as I am I have not yet found an easy way of perfecting a difficult selection but I have got smarter and faster with all the practice.

I like the concept but it may be a bit more striking if you used Hue/saturation adjust to increase the saturation and lighten the red a fraction.

Yes I am using a layer
Going to play with the hue/saturation also as you suggested

Did you have the "aliasing" box checked when you selected the bridge? I would have thought that would be undesirable?

At 400%, there's some horizontal and vertical color artifacts near the bridge in the B&W zone - which may, or mat not, be a clue.

Yes I have anti-alias checked off.I'll try turning it off and see in that works better.

I wonder if I crank up the contrast temporarily if that might help define the edges a bit better for selection. Fairly new to Photoshop other than simple adjustments so I may have a few more questions.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Ron!

Are you able to use layer masks in PSE? Because if you can, and are doing so, it is going to be a lot easier. And we might be able to make a couple of suggestions on using that technique.

And yes, it will definitely help the selection process and the selection tools (if you are going to make a selection, which I think would be horrendously tedious) if you can get more contrast between what you are trying to select and what you are trying to select it from. I don't know what is available in PSE as far as channels, so I won't mention anything there yet. But you could certainly try a tempory levels or curves adjustment layer to crank out some contrast, possibly try refining the contrast by dodging/burning (on a separate layer of course, or even a separate new 50% gray layer), then making your selection. After your selection is made to your liking you can scrap the temp contrast layers.

I'm sorry Ron. Like I said I don't know what tools or options are available in PSE.

But if you have these available...

Pen Tool would be pretty quick darn quick.

If your bridge rails are fairly consistent and or there is no other color like them in the frame Color Range might be useful.

Quick Select might be good.

I like Magnetic Lasso a lot of times set low width/contrast/frequency.

At least you are not selecting things like hair so your tools should work pretty well and fairly quick and easy.

But again, if are/can use masks that would be what I would do first. And if you can, paint the red in as close as you can. Don't worry if you get out of the lines a tad. Then switch your brush color and go back and "cut back in". This is one of the most eloquent things about masks.

Ron, I had a .jpg (not even a Raw) my wifey-poo sent me laying around on my desk top. Since it was a red subject used it.

I increased contrast in the channels/levels layer, and then selected with a magnetic lasso. Also used the quick select to do the same.

Cleaned up the selection, put it on a separate layer (Com/J on Mac).

And just de-saturated the image layer under it. No other tweaking or anything else, just doing a quick selective color.

It was a quickie hack and may not be perfect, but if you toggle back and forth in lytebox, and don’t peep at 400% I think you will find it’s not so too bad.

And its just an example so if you do peep at (an unbelievable) 400% and find where I colored out of the lines, I apologize! I fingerpainted it, its a processed .jpg, its low res, and I have to walk across the street to see anything on my screen at 400%! So yeah, you will find something!

[AceOfHobbes]

Thanks for the suggestions all.

Going to work on it later this week when I have some time.