Thread: Selective Colour - SUCH an opinion polarizer

Always (well, usually) guaranteed to generate a debate

Well, my opinion is that you have yourself an awfully cute little boy. I say boy because of the Batman costume.

From an aesthetic point of view, I prefer your second image with his hat in color and am glad it's a muted color, though it may well be the real color of his little monster hat. The first one strikes me as humorous due to that big Batman mouth in the bold yellow as I think he's waiting for something to eat, while your second view is pure and simple and adorable. Keep taking lots of pictures!

I rarely think it's the best choice. It always seems a little cloying. It definitely works in your second one. I think in general, I like dialed down saturation in the colored area. They are both great shots, no doubt.....and a cute kid.

I came here looking to see selective color attempted through a polarizing filter. I need to get out more often.

First of all, they're both cute pictures. Second, I can see how selective color can work occasionally as an artistic device, but often it seems (to me) so jarringly artificial that it gives the images much less impact overall.

I think it's our local Steak 'n Shake restaurant that uses selective color on the photographs adorning its walls to continue the black, white and red theme of the franchise. That in conjunction with older photographs gives the place a nostalgic feel to it, like the soda fountain shops in the 50's. It can work in certain instances. I think the glowing color of the batman sigil on his chest has good impact given the nature of the comic series. The second photo is cute but the selective color really doesn't have meaning there. A lot of people experiment with selective coloring when they first start processing. That is when you see people do a lot of things like heavy saturation or gimmick frames or heavy blurs trying to imitate the orton effect. Kinda like the thing you see when kids first start using graphics programs and suddenly the hair on their photo is bright pink and they stamped little stars over it and lines from songs. It's a learning process that when one has the technique down they generally use it less often, only when they can see the impact it will add to an image. Used tastefully like Batman above, it works. If everything was straight out of camera, film and digital, very few of the famous photographs that we saw then and see today would have the polish and publicity they do. So IMHO, it's okay to experiment and sometimes employ even controversial techniques that to some even seem corny. You'll find even more polarization with HDR lol.. and yet some really fine work can come out of it. Be the one to use it creatively.