TABLE OF CONTENTS The same two-layer erase back technique can be used for creating photographs which contain both color and black and white elements, but I prefer to use a different method based around Elements masking options.
Suitable for Elements 6, 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 Difficulty level Intermediate Resources Web image 6.32
Related Techniques 6.18 Tools used Selection tools Menus used Select, Layer
With the color image open make a selection of the objects that will not be converted to black and white. In the example I used a combination of the Magnetic Lasso and the standard Lasso tools to select the three map pins, but you could also use the Magic Selection Brush to achieve the same results. Next, feather the selection (Select > Feather) slightly with a setting of 1 pixel to soften the edge of the effect. Invert the selection (Select > Inverse) so that the background (everything other than the map pins) is now selected. Then, with the selection still active, create a new Gradient Map adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map). When the Gradient Map dialog appears select the map with a smooth transition...
