Inverse Karma

You must’ve come across those slick and glossy movie posters where only one color is highlighted and the rest of the image is gray scaled. Well, thats quite easy to do with Photoshop. Do not worry mortals, if you do not know how to use PS. Inverse Karma to the rescue

Below are the two images we’ve worked on. The left image is the original source and the one on the right is our prized work of art!

Let us begin with what we’ll be needing for trying out this tutorial – Adobe Photoshop (any version should do good; I personally work on Photoshop CS) and a dash of curiosity

First open the image using Photoshop. The layout might be slightly different in your machine, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

Next, duplicate the original background layer.

Now select the new duplicate layer and click on the Select>Color Range menu. Once the Color Range dialog box opens up, use the eyedropper tool to select the color you want to show in your final image (here, I chose red). Play around with the Fuzziness value till you cover most reds. It is easier to achieve this when choosing White Matte for the selection preview. Once you’re done, click on OK.

Now all regions of red are selected. We need to add a layer mask to preserve this selection. Click on the Add layer mask in the Layers dialog box to add a layer mask.

Once the layer mask is added, select the original background layer and then navigate to Image>Adjustments>Gradient Map. Select the Black & White gradient and click on OK. Your final image is almost ready now!

There might be few colored spots (notice the lips here) left on the image you’d not want. To gray scale them, select the duplicate colored layer and then use the Eraser tool to remove the color.

And there you have it – your promised work of art! Go ahead and try this out. Just remember to choose images with nice backgrounds to really make your image stand out. Happy photoshopping

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