How to use Masking to Highlight Color in Photoshop

Here is the final result of what you can achieve with this tutorial.

1. Open your image (your render or photograph, etc)

2. Make a second copy of your image by dragging your it into the "new layer icon",  and rename it to "B/W"  for your black and white copy.

After dragging the layer to the icon, it should duplicate and a new layer will appear on your list.

3. Now Select your B/W layer and disaturate the image by pressing Ctrl+Shift+U or Image > adjustment > disaturate. In this step you'll turn your second layer into a black and white.

After desaturating the b/w layer, it should become black and white like the image above.

4. if you wish, you can adjust the brightness of your image, you can use, Image > adjustments> levels, brightness and contrast, and any other feature that will adjust your brightness for you. Just remember that your working with too layers, if you decide to adjust the brightness on the black and white, you might want to make the same adjustments on the colored image (but that is up to you).

5. After your satisfied with the adjustments on your B/W image you need to mask it. Select your B/W layer and add a "layer mask" by clicking the masking icon on the bottom of your layers pallett or by going to  Layer > Layer mask > Reveal all.

Now, its time to expose the color areas. Use the polygonal lasso tool to select such areas as; the painting on the wall, the books, statues etc, these are the areas that will be exposed.

6. Now you can paint over your mask layer to reveal your colored layer below. Select the brush tool (3 above), and make sure black is your main, now paint over your selected area to reveal the color layer below . I used this technique to achieve these set of images click here to view.

Here is another result of using this tutorial.

Thanks for reading this simple tutorial