Removing color

[zrock]

Got out today verry quickly and was able to snap a few senery shots in raw mode. The one i have is a few trees and a building behind. I want to take the red tree that sits in teh middle and make everything around it black and white... what would i use for this?

[mbrager]

Welcome to the forums. You can do what you are imagining several ways, but to help you more can you tell us what software you already have for working with RAW images? In Picasa which is a free download from Google there is a setting called Focal Black and White in the Effects tab that lets you do what you are describing.

[zrock]

All i have at the moment is the moment all i have is the software that came with the Canon t1i and thats not much... Only other software i have on this computer is my vid editing sofware that really dosent have teh capability to do what i want. Boy to i wish i had my old computer back had Corel, Adobe, and another one whos name is escaping me, plus a top notch vid software unfortunately old computer died and took the hd with it and the software was just old enough not to work on this new system. And cannot justify going out and spending alot of cash for Adobe again right now.
This is what i was trying to acomplish used photoshop online to do it but would like some half decent software that i could work with the raw images instead. My raw image of the same shot seemed to have way more depth and clarity to it.
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn16/Salvo2008/IMG_0321_edited-2.jpg
Ya i know its a poor photo but im new to the game still learing (didnt have time to play when i took this i was at work ;) )

[mbrager]

Hey Zrock: I don't think it's poor at all. Your idea of selectively coloring some of the photo seems like a good one to me. I like the way you left the flowers in the bottom right corner, various leaves and some of the brick work lightly colored as well. You wound up capturing my interest in the picture for sure. It also seems sharp and in focus. There's quite a bit of free and online software available without spending much money. I've used Digital Photo Professional, bundled with Canon cameras, and it works well with RAW images. Mike

[Bambi]

in terms of some cost effective software there are two good ones that are free downloads:
Picasa is a basic editor but it's easy to use and learn.
GIMP is very much like PS. it's a little harder to learn but incredibly powerful.

[zrock]

Thanks. I like the picture but to me it still dosent have that pop. I look at some of the shots on this site and some of them just seem to jump right off the page at you. To me this photo is still missing that depth.
Thanks for the heads up on Gimp downloaded it and looks to be a pretty good little program. gonna go play with it now

[zrock]

in terms of some cost effective software there are two good ones that are free downloads:
Picasa is a basic editor but it's easy to use and learn.
GIMP is very much like PS. it's a little harder to learn but incredibly powerful.

Got to use gimp pretty good program. Did not find it to hard to use but im also familiar with adobe and corel that have alot of the same controlls. Found their tutorials very good