Does Colour go with B+W

[arith]

Hi Arith:
In this case the "litter" if you are refering to the boxes and stand at the bottom are unavoidable, and I don't think you can clone or crop them. My comments did not refer to croping because of distracting elements, although as you've noticed unwanted little bits are a pet peeve of mine.

I love this photo, it's a beautiful catherdral. I like the tone of the B&W and to answer your original question, Yes, colour and B&W do go together. There's just something about the colour being at the outsides instead of the centre that pulls my eyes apart. That was just an initial reaction though. Generally I love the photo and the colour enhances it even more. It's just in my nature to always want to try something else.

I still like the original the best. I don't like the one you did with just one window in colour, and cropping into 2 seperate images spoils it also. I'd really like to see it if you could colour the pulpit and stairs along with the windows though. Is that possible? This is the kind of work I would like to be able to do in the future, so I'm just curious if it can be done.

Wendy

It is beyond my abilities Wendy; to change the windows is no problem you just choose to put the colour image over the B+W and lock it, decompose components into RGB then use threshold to highlight the brightest bits. Copy and paste into a mask and touch up with a paintbrush. I use fuzzy edged.

Then invert colour and cut; choose alpha as white transparent then flatten; it is a bit fiddly though and hard to see what your doing.

Cheers; by the way with regard to cleaning up I was thinking of swans and bridge; and now everything and I am really appreciative because I sometimes get into a lazy mode of 'it's there so what's the problem' sort of attitude.

[ScoutR]

It is beyond my abilities Wendy; to change the windows is no problem you just choose to put the colour image over the B+W and lock it, decompose components into RGB then use threshold to highlight the brightest bits. Copy and paste into a mask and touch up with a paintbrush. I use fuzzy edged.

Then invert colour and cut; choose alpha as white transparent then flatten; it is a bit fiddly though and hard to see what your doing.

Aaaarrrrrgggggg!!!! Did I say I'd like to be able to do this in the future. Make that the distant future. In the meantime, just ignore me when I ask for the impossible.

Wendy

[arith]

I'm not the best person to explain things Wendy; I didn't go into teaching because I had a lot of confused kids and I couldn't understand why.
http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/gimp-ima...qmask-overview

Is used only to make the selection, 'threshold' just turns to black and white with a slider which works a bit like the black point in levels.

Or you could just use the paintbrush to make the selection; making the selection is the hardest bit everything else is easy. It is like driving a car, bit confusing at first but then maybe to easy.

In the mask the selection process works by colours. White is selected Black isn't; Grey is sort of merged. Best ask an expert because I feel I'm only making it worse when really it is easy.

[Donald]

Wendy

As you'll have worked out, arith is referring to work on the GIMP, which you don't have.

arith - You're obviously very used to using the GIMP's Quickmask. I've never done so.

Could you achieve the same end by making a B & W copy of the image, laying the colour version on top with a layer mask on it and just paint back the colour bits that you want?

[arith]

Wendy

As you'll have worked out, arith is referring to work on the GIMP, which you don't have.

arith - You're obviously very used to using the GIMP's Quickmask. I've never done so.

Could you achieve the same end by making a B & W copy of the image, laying the colour version on top with a layer mask on it and just paint back the colour bits that you want?

Yes; there's hundreds of ways to do it. I just choose Threshold and paste because I'm clumsy with my fingers, I find touching up the mask easier for me.

But the only way to select the podium is by another way taking me hours possibly with the lasso to help.

Cheers Donald you are the expert with Gimp and could possibly convince Wendy it isn't really that hard. Better if you have nimble fingers though.

[Donald]

Cheers Donald you are the expert

Oh no, no, no, no!!! There are others here (who haven't been as active of late) who are much, much more knowledgeable than me and from whom I have learned so much.

[arith]

You know more than I do about it Donald; sharpening for instance. I only ever use Gimp for special effects; looking forward to a 16 bit Gimp and I will be using it all the time. Sharpening is a complete mystery to me by the way. The application I use has sliders for fine detail and edges and mostly I use 100% fine detail 10% edges and 100 or 33% threshold with halo suppressed.

But it all depends on the pic.

[ScoutR]

I'm not the best person to explain things Wendy; I didn't go into teaching because I had a lot of confused kids and I couldn't understand why

Hi Arith: it's not that you are explaining it wrong. Remember you are talking to someone who just figured out how to use the cloning tool. What you are trying to explain to me right now is like trying to teach someone calculus when they can't do basic arithmetic. .

It is an effect that I like though, and you seem to have it mastered, so I will be bugging you for some help when the time is right.

At the moment, I really need to work on getting better shots out of the camera. and I'm not getting into anything else until I figure out and experiment with all the different methods of sharpening. It's too easy (for me) to go off on tangents with all the things that are possible.

Wendy

[arith]

Just an idea from what somebody said and it will take hours to do when I can be bothered; does this work better