Need help with this effect

What I'm trying to do is take a color photo of a person and make everything in the picture black and white except their shirt and shorts...

Can anybody help me with this?

Thanks

What you would want to do (unless there is a better way?) is create two images. Convert one to B&W. in PS

image --> mode --> grayscale,

then convert back to rgb - so now you have a B&W image in RGB mode.

Then with the color version, select the clothes or what ever you want to be color, copy that and then paste it into the B&W version.

You might need to check around a bit if you are having trouble with selecting the clothes only.

One thing to note is dont go tweaking the source image without having a back up version in case you decide to start over =)

Pank created one using channels that is really nice.
http://teamphotoshop.com/photoshop/tutorials/tools/channelselect/channelselect.php

otherwise try using the
image --> extract

or using
select --> color range

To get started. One of these ways should work.

make a new layer above your color photo.

fill it with black or white

change it's layer mode to color

erase the area you want in color from the black or white layer.

save it as a .tiff or whatever - you don't want to flatten it, in case you want your color version in the future.

damn - he got me by a minute! :D

hehe! but you had the idea of using the B&W as a fill layer and using the erase tool. Didnt think of that one =) In fact Im going to have to try that!
Hey we registered on the same month. man Im going to have to catch up on the posting....

i've to try what u said, marble!

you could also use a masking layer....

layer 1, black and white pic (using desaturate)
layer 2, color pic (copy of layer one before desaturate is applied)

Put a masking layer on layer two, select a paintbrush and "erase" the color you want to lose, leaving only the colors you want to keep, works great.