How to Make Part of a Picture Color and the Rest of It Black and White

Open Adobe Photoshop Elements. Open the photo you want to work with. At the bottom of the screen there is a tray that shows a smaller version of the photo you've opened. Right click this photo and choose "Add Blank Page" and click OK to create a project. There will be a blank frame next to the photo you opened in this lower tray.

Go back to the original photo by double clicking on the original photo in the tray. It might be easier to do this by clicking on "View" and then "Actual Pixels." Choose the polygonal lasso tool among your tool tray on the left. Use this tool to outline the area you want to keep in color.

You must enclose the area(s) you want to remain color with the lasso tool and leave out all other area that will be gray scale. If there is more than one area in the picture that you want to keep in color, this lasso step must be done separately for each area.

Complete your lasso and, to lessen the effect of the polygonal tool, before you cut the area you've enclosed go to the "Select" menu and pick "Feather." Enter a value like 1, 2 or 3 and click OK. Then cut the portion of the picture as you would cut copy from a document. That portion of the picture should disappear and leave white space behind.

Double click on the page you added at the bottom of the screen to bring it up. Choose the "Edit" menu and select "Paste." The piece that you cut in the last step should appear on the white page. Return to the original picture by again double clicking the page at the bottom.

Select "View" and then "Fit On Screen," so you can see the entire picture. Select the "Image" menu, then "Mode" and then "Grayscale" to make the original picture black and white. Click OK to discard color information. Choose the "Select" menu and then pick "All." Then click "Edit" and "Cut." Return to the added page with the color piece on it by double clicking it again.

With the white page and the color piece on it, choose "Edit" and then "Paste" and the gray scale original picture with the color piece still "gone" should appear and the color portion should disappear. This is OK, the color portion is just in a different layer, behind the original picture that you just pasted onto the new page. Now go to the "Layer" menu, choose "Arrange" and "Send To Back." The color portion will appear somewhere on top of the black and white layer you just pasted. Click on the color portion with the move tool and slide it into the white space on the black and white photo where the color portion should be.

Save the document as a .JPG so you can print or email it to friends. Ggo to "File" and "Save for Web." The program should be preset to save the photo as a .jpg. Click OK and choose the folder where you want to save the picture on your computer.