How to Make the Background Color Only Black & White in Photoshop
Taking a picture isn't usually as simple and straight forward as "black and white," but the resulting photograph can be. No matter the colors, shades or hues captured on film, when you bring the image into a graphics software program such as Adobe Photoshop, you have complete control over its appearance. Change a brightly colored picture to shades of black and white or keep your foreground in full color and change just the background to grayscale with a couple of quick clicks.
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Instructions
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Open Photoshop, click the "File" menu and select "Open." Navigate to a picture to turn black and white and double-click the file name. The picture opens in the Photoshop workspace. Click the "View" menu and select "Fit on Screen" to fit the entire image in the workspace.
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2
Click the "Lasso" tool on the "Tools" palette on the left side of the screen. Draw an outline around the foreground subject of the photo, such as a group of people or a house. When the blinking dotted lines appear, right-click them and select "Layer via Copy."
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3
Pull down the "Window" menu at the top of the screen and select "Layers" to open the "Layers" palette, which shows two layers: Background, with the original image and Layer 1, with the foreground.
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4
Click the Background layer to give it focus. Click the "Image" menu at the top of the screen, click "Adjustments" and select "Black & White." Leave the "Black and White" window settings as their defaults and click the "OK" button. The background of the image is now black and white with the foreground in color.
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5
Eliminate the color from the foreground so the entire image is black and white by right-clicking Layer 1 in the "Layers" palette. Select "Delete Layer" and click "Yes" at the warning window. The layer is deleted and the entire image is now black and white.
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6
Click the "File" menu, click "Save As" and type a new name for the image to preserve the original full-color version.
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