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Vanilla 1.1.5a is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.
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I don't know how many of you use it, but Picasa has a nice effect called focal black and white. Basically, it turns a picture black and white, except for the focal area you choose. I like the effect in Picasa, but it's very limited. I've found tutorials on how to do the same thing in Photoshop (which I don't have and can't afford), but I can't figure out if it can be done in Fireworks (which I do have).
Can anybody help me out?
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Kind of... try The Gimp instead of/as well as Fireworks. If you're on the Mac, GimpShop (available from the Apple website's download section) is pretty close to Photoshop in terms of menus etc; it needs to run in X11 but that's not a problem once it's all installed. It can handle PNGs, too - IIRC it can do PSDs, but it has it's own layered format, .XCF, which is pretty much the same thing.
Gimpshop is also available on the PC. The original - non-photoshop-like Gimp - is just as good but maybe a little less familiar as an interface.
The photoshop tutorials should then be reasonably easy to adapt to The Gimp, or there may be other tutorials out there you can use.
Oh - did I mention The Gimp is a free download? Gimpshop for Windows and further info
Gimpshop for Mac -
Right... I've not seen the effect in Picassa, but here's what I've done in The Gimp fairly quickly:
Gimp BW effect
- Select the area you want to remain coloured
- feather the selection by a fairly large amount - 30px in this case
- invert the selection
- tools > colour tools > hue-saturation
- select "master" and move all sliders to left.
- deselect all, save.
And here's the same in Fireworks:
BW focus in Fireworks
- Open picture to edit
- Choose "marquee" tool under Bitmap
- set "edge" to feather - again, a largeish amount - 30 px in this case. The feather ensures it's a gentle fade to B&W, rather than a harsh edge. Don't feather if you want a sudden change.
- select the area to remain in colour
- ctrl+shift+i to invert selection
- go to commands > creative > convert to greyscale
- ctrl + d to deselect - preview the image and save it if you're happy.
Is that what you were after? Like I said, I've not seen the effect in Picassa... :)
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