The Red Glasses!

So I finally capitulated and did the 'colour object and the black and white photo!' Never thought I would, but I guess I was asked by the right client as so far my answer has always been no. Nico and Erna were in Cape Town to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary - they're just the nicest, most down to earth people that you're ever likely to meet - and when they asked if I could do the 'colour thing' with the 'black and white photo thing' . . . I said . . . yes.

So here's an example that I'm actually quite happy with. I spent quite a bit of time making sure that the transistion from black and white to colour was smooth - so once I'd picked up the glasses on the layer mask I put a 250px gausian blur on the mask so that there's a fairly big area around the glasses that has a tiny blush of colour. Then I carefully repainted the glasses on the layer mask and put a light gausian blur on - this time about 2px. I find that otherwise the line between black and white and colour is too sharp. And if you look closely at the colour (or the black and white image) you'll see that the distinction between the glasses and the other objects around it is not sharp. The other thing that I did was put a fairly light red photo filter over the whole image, but making it lighter in the centre and heavier on the edges. Again just so that the red isn't too jarring.