How to Create Black and White with Selective Color in Adobe Lightroom

 

Selective color is a process used broadly in photography after the original image has been taken. This technique entails converting selected parts of a photo to black and white but leaving out some parts in color. A lot of digital cameras these days have a selective color option you can use. But today I’m going to show you how to create a simple selective color image using only Adobe Lightroom as your post-processing software.

Black and white with selective color lightroom tutorial for photographers

1. Import your Photo.

Open Lightroom and import your photo, then go to Develop mode.

IMPORT YOUR IMAGE INTO LIGHTROOM

Note: We used our Portrait Perfection Lightroom Presets Collection to improve and enhance an image. 

portrait correction lightroom presets

2. Select your color.

In this picture, we decided to leave a red color and convert all other colors into black and white. To do this, in HSL mode select Saturation, and then, increase to +30 points Red color, and decrease to -100 all other colors. 

choose HSL in lightroom application

3. Post-processing.

Use Tone and Presence options to enhance your image. We decided to do this with: Exposure +0.10 / Contrast +40 / Shadows -50 / White +30 / Blacks +20 and Clarity +23. The result you can see on the image below.

enhance your photo in lightroom cc

4. Use Adjustment Brush 

To completely remove all colors besides Red color, use Adjustment Brush and decrease Saturation option to -100.

choose adjustment for remove a color from the image

You can compare before and after in the image below.

finish your process by beart

 

Thanks for reading! I hope you picked up one or two new tips.


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