How To Highlight A Section Of Your Photograph

HOW TO HIGHLIGHT A SECTION OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPH

The photo on my DT layout this month is mainly black and white, except for one coloured section that I wanted to highlight. I used a mainly B&W photo because I didn’t want to detract from the lovely colours in the challenge colour palette but, on the other hand, I didn’t want to lose the detail in my photo. Here’s how I overcame the challenge digitally. I’ve used my Artisan programme to do this but you can use any digital software to create the same effect.

Step 1: Isolating the area you want to stand out

After loading my photo, I used the “Cut & Fill” tool (highlighted in yellow) then “Shapes” (also highlighted) and from the drop down box I chose the circle shape. I moved the circle over the part of the photo I wanted to highlight. When the circle was in place as shown above, I chose to “Keep both sections” (i.e. the highlighted circle and the background) and checked “copy”.

This is what you’ll end up with 1 the original photo and 2 both parts of the copy (the circle cut out and the background). At this stage, nothing looks any different because all the layers are on top of each other.

Step 2: Highlighting the area

You can see now that I have deleted the background copy and I’m left with the original photo and the circle. All that has to be done now is to click on the original photo and convert it to B&W by using the “Color” “Black and White” tools which are highlighted in yellow above. The circle remains in colour. You can now make it stand out even more by adding shadows or other affects to the circle. I used a frame on my layout to highlight the circle.

The traditional solution

If you want to use this technique on a traditional layout, it’s very easy. First, print two copies of your photo in the same size, one coloured and one B&W. Select the area you want to highlight on the coloured photo and cut it out. Now you can stick the coloured cut-out on top of the B&W photo. You can make the cut-out standout even more by sticking it down with foam dots.

Although I’ve used a circle cut-out in this example, you can use any shape you want for this technique. Here’s another layout I did recently using the technique but with a very different outcome.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope this inspires you to try something new.

Cheers.

Wendy

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