Careful Colorizing

Sometimes it's hard to make something alive and green stand out during the summer. This background was a little cluttered, too, as I wanted to showcase the beautiful new blossoms on this Solomon's Seal plant. I found the solution by selecting the background portion of the image and getting rid of the color. It's a little time consuming but well worth it! Here is how I did it:

• Manual focus was important for this photo because the main subject (the blossoms) wasn't in the middle of the photograph.
• Depth of field was carefully chosen. I used f/22 and Aperture Priority mode.
• A tripod was critically important. So was patience, as the wind kept blowing!

In Photoshop the following skills were used:

• I used the Quick Mask mode to paint a selection along the edges of the stem, blossoms, and leaves
• Once the selection was made, I used an adjustment layer for black and white.

Photo 1: An Introduction to the Art of Photography can help you learn these skills and many more. Find this book at http://goo.gl/Aou5IE .