How Do You Do That?!

Since Haley's on my Blog, I figured I'd better post her dad's picture too!

This is fingerstyle extraordinare Doyle Dykes. He's the personification of a "Country Gentleman" in every way. This image was taken at the same event I shot Haley's image.

As you can see, I've applied the "cliche shot of the 2000's"... a B&W image with selective color brought back. Often you'll see this on wedding images of the bride and just her bouquet in color. It's a classic shot.

But here, I've applied this technique to Doyle's Taylor DDSM guitar (Doyle Dykes Signature Model.) Yes... it's an ORANGE guitar. I didn't change the color, although I could easily have with Photoshop. But that just wouldn't be right. :)

Well, how do you do this? Ah... "ancient Chinese secret!" :) Actually, it's not that difficult, but it can be time consuming on some images (especially flowers.) Essentially, the color is stripped off the image so that only the B&W elements remain. Then, the color on the guitar is actually "painted" back on the guitar with the mouse. The hard part is painting within the lines. Now this is where the skills learned as a Kindergartener pays off. If you can't color within the lines, you can't be a digital photographer! Plain and simple! Who said "coloring" would never pay off?

The really cool part about this technique is that your eye is drawn to the colored item and not the background. Looking at Doyle's picture, he's surrounded by a clutter of amplifiers. But you don't really notice it all that much because you are concentrating on his guitar. Sneeky, huh? It saves what would normally be a fairly bland shot and turns it into something spectacular.