Focal B&W Photos

One of the things I love to do is take photographs.
Of my kids,  my rooms, flowers ;), nature, vignettes, etc...
When I am inspired ~ I love to capture that inspiration with pictures.
I am often asked how I get my photos to have the color in just one little spot

 and the rest of it in black and white.
I know a lot of you already know all about this fun tool-it's right there
in the photo editing software but when I discovered it-
 I was trying it on all kinds of photos!

I am by no means a photography expert-I am learning as I go.

  I actually have had a few  conversations recently with two absolutely

AMAZING accomplished  photographers who have given me some huge tips
and even walked me through setting my camera for the best setting.

Thank you so much to you both! I can't thank you enough for your help!

One of them told me that when she first started taking photos-
 she would ask for help from established photographers and they would not share any tips
 or help her at all and she remembered how frustrating it was for her to try and learn everything on her own.

So she made it a point to help people learn when someone asks how to do something.
I love that attitude of giving back and helping others.

I am super appreciative of the help they have given me

So... though I am just learning more about taking great photographs and editing-
  I can share how to use some of the editing tools in picasa

 :)

 I add a watermark and then do any basic tools that I want to apply
 and then I send them over to my computer and use my Iphoto software.

I have found that as simple as Iphoto is- 

some of the tools are much better  than what I have used at Picasa.

So here are a few examples of some of the focal photos I have done recently.

This one was taken in the Petite Cottage Bathroom Makeover. 

The flowers were so vibrant and such a pop of color- they were gorgeous. 

The stood out even more with the rest of colors muted.

This one- the background is actually a more taupey brown color- and the chair is weathered silver.

This one kind of looked like it already had a focal edit- but I did edit to color just the roses.

Just the peonies...
 love them.

Okay- so here's a photo before focal b&w editing 

I actually really like how the lighting and the room looks in full color. 

But for fun- I wanted to make those roses pop even more.

Here it is after the B&W photo editing tool did it's work.

The roses also came out a bit softer- I did not use the glow tool on this one.

Here's another example.

This photo has NO editing.  Yikes... it's bad! Sooo dark!! 

(I have since learned a bit more about those camera settings! ;)

This was an early evening photo~ notice the blue cast coming in the window.

 I ran out to grab just a few more pictures before settling in to edit and create a post. 

 Here it is after adjusting

Ahhh... Soooo much better!!

So to find this tool in Picasa- 

When you are there- click on one of your photos which will bring it up larger.

There will be 3 tabs you can work with:

Basic fixes

Tuning

Effects

In EFFECTS

there is the B&W Focal tool.

Just click on it and the tool will show up on your photo

Move it to hover over the area you would like to show color and adjust the size if you would like

to show more or less of the photo colorized.

That's it!
:)

Hope that helps answer some questions!!
Happy Editing!!
:)