Colour Isolation Experiment: Selection and Manipulating Saturation & Hue Techniques

The original photograph I chose to edit. I chose this photograph because of the nice vibrant colours that are present.

To start editing this photo, I chose the Magnetic Lasso Tool to accurately select the business front signs and displays and part of the bus stop, one by one.

I selected the 'MEGABOWL' sign first and zoomed into the photo to accurately select only the sign also using the Magic Wand Tool to select and inversely select to refine my selection path. After I finished with my selection, I saved the selection which goes into my Channels palette.

By the end of carefully selecting specifically for half an hour, I had these 5 saved selections on my Channels palette. To get all these selections combined into one single selection, firstly, I made sure that there was already one selection path active on my Background Copy Layer. Then, going onto Select, I clicked on Load Selection and a window box appears. Here, I can select a Channel - my saved selection paths. I checked 'Add to Selection' for my Operation. This is how two selection paths combine to form a single layer of selection. One after the other I added to my selection until all my saved selection paths were in one whole layer.

I decided to change the Hue of the colours in my selections next. I clicked on the 'Adjustment Layer' icon to change the original Hue value to -150. Looking at the print screen on the right, the top colour bar in the 'Hue/Saturation' window shows the original colour range. The bottom colour bar shows the new ranges of Hue. This meant that greens became reds, reds became blues and blues became yellows. I also increased the Saturation to +25 to make the colour stand out a little bit more.

Once done adjusting Hue and Saturation, I decided to edit to the background. To do this, I simply right-clicked/alt and chose the 'Select Inverse'. In this case, everything outside the previous selections of the business signs and displays were now selected. Repeating the same step, I changed the Hue and Saturation of the background this time. I changed the Hue to +51 and the Saturation to -51.

After changing Hue and Saturation, I wanted to add an effect to the background. I decided to 'Posterize' the background which gives it an oil-painting effect. I gave it a Levels value of 9 for Posterization.

Here is my finished edit: