Selective coloring photography tips and ideas

Last Updated on 19/02/2024

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Discover selective coloring photography tips and ideas while questioning the quality and the artistic value of this technique. Reading different articles and opinions about selective coloring in photography sites and forums, the famous song “It’s a Sin” by Pet Shop Boys came to my mind. Is selective coloring a ‘photographic sin’? On one hand, there are stunning examples of this effect, trying to convince us optically how amazing is to use selective color editing in emphasizing details. And, there is the category of photographers that consider selective color a cheap cliché. And, they believe that ‘real photographers’ never use this embarrassing method for their skills.

Selective coloring photography tips and ideas

What is selective coloring?

Selective color is a post-process technique, where most of the photo is converted into black and white, and some parts of it are left in color. How this technique has turned today to mean something artless and bad is in question, especially if you remember the movies Schindler’s List and Sin City. 

What is selective coloring in movies?

Both of these movies made huge success with the public and critics and used this method in their photography. Schindler’s list was nominated for many awards, including seven Academy Awards, seven BAFTAs, and three Golden Globes. And, Sin City won the Technical Grand Prize at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.   

Reasons not to use selective coloring

The main argument of the naysayers is that selective color draws the attention of the viewer with fake effects and in specific spots with no apparent reason, but only to be pompous and overdramatic. Moreover, it is so overused that become a cliché. Nowadays, it is amateurs’ gimmick to save their crappy pictures. 

Reasons not to use selective coloring

On the contrary, for selective color enthusiasts, this technique is a useful tool that any photographer should experiment with. Sometimes it serves the composition so well and its result satisfies anyone. It can also be used in a less obvious way to correct and enhance tones.

Last thoughts

From my humble view, selective coloring is a technique that sometimes can work perfectly in a composition. Some images seem to cry loudly for it and others seem too artificial and predictable with it. Of course, it would be so boring and meaningless to transform all photos of a portfolio into a black-and-white background of colorful spots. But I can’t condemn it with an artistic aphorism if it serves a concept through storytelling. Good art, bad art; all these definitions and labels can be interpreted so widely and differently, that can include almost anything. As the artist, Damien Hirst said: “Great art – or good art – is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind“. And, I agree with him.

More articles with different approaches

In the shortlist below you can read more articles with different approaches to this technique.

• Selective Color – Possibly the best tool for photographers on fstoppers.com
• Why You Should Never Use Spot Color on expertphotography.com
• When to Use Selective Coloring on digital-photo-secret.com
• Photoshop: Selective Coloring Creates Stand-Out Shots on digital-photo-secret.com

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