Selective Desaturation – the Easy Way!

I came across this technique from John Paul Caponigro – absolutely the best when it comes to color and artistic applications of Photoshop. Check out his website if you have not already – it is full of useful information and articles and is very inspirational.

This is a very simple technique – simply add a New Layer on top of your image and set the blend mode to Saturation, select the Brush Tool, set color to black (white or gray will also work) and 15% opacity in the Options Bar. Paint over the area you want several times to building up the desaturated effect until you get the look you are after.

I have a few favorite images that I like to use for new techniques and this one of a street in Edinburgh, Scotland is one of them. The image was processed in Lightroom using one of my favorite presets, Matt’s 70’s Look preset (here is the ACR preset), applied (without the vignetting), and then it was brought into Photoshop. The green trees and the bright green bush in the right front were way too saturated for this vintage look. Therefore, the colors were slowly desaturated until they matched the image. Hover over the image as it came in from Lightroom and see the original bright green colors.

After each brush stroke, you can Edit -> Fade Effect if it was too much of a change – this can only be done immediately after applying the stroke. The layer opacity can also be reduced for overall reduction of the effect or a layer mask can be applied and paint in just specific areas. Very flexible way of localizing a change.

This technique can be very useful when you want to just de-emphasize something that is too bright in the image, especially on small areas. Also, green foliage tends to be over-bright as in this picture and it can be toned down just a small amount very easily.

Hope you find the tip useful – it is just one of those little things that help make or break a picture.  Until next time…..Digital Lady Syd