Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Method Two: Removing Color from Photos

Since one size never fits all, Elements gives you a few other, fundamentally different ways to remove the color from your image. The instructions in the preceding section are usually your best bet when you want to convert a whole photo to black and white. But if you want to drain color from just 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 can try one of these three methods:

• Convert mode. You may remember from Choosing a Resolution that you need to choose a color mode for your images: RGB, Bitmap, or Grayscale. You can remove the color from your photo by changing its mode to Grayscale: 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 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 command removes the color only from the active layer, so if your photo has more than one layer, then 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—just as you might when using the Hue/Saturation command (described next). Remove Color is faster, but you don't get as much control as with the Hue/Saturation command. Figure 10-2 shows ...