Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual

Method Two: Removing Color from a Photo

Since one size never fits all, Elements gives you a few other, fundamentally different ways to remove the color from your image. Most times, you should follow the instructions in the preceding section to convert your photo to black and white. But if you want to drain the color from a particular part of your photo, or if you're looking to do something artistic, like changing a color photo into a drawing or a painting, then you'll probably want to try one of these three methods:

• Convert Mode. You may remember from Choosing Resolution that you need to choose a color mode for your photo: RGB, Bitmap, or Grayscale. You can remove the color from your photo by changing its mode to Grayscale. To do this, choose Image → Mode → Grayscale. This method is quick, but it's also a bit destructive, since you can't apply it to a layer: Your entire photo is either grayscale or not.

• Remove Color. You can also keep your photo as an RGB file and drain the color from it, by going to Enhance → Adjust Color → Remove Color (or pressing Shift+Ctrl+U). This removes the color from the active layer only, so if your photo has more than one layer, you need to flatten it first (Layer → Flatten Image), or the other layers keep their color.

  Remove Color is really just another way to completely desaturate your photo as you might when using the Hue/Saturation command (described in the next option). Remove Color is faster but you don't get the control that the Hue/Saturation command ...