A question about composition, and photoshop

[erewnoh]

I was out with my camera photographing some people fishing and a beautiful mountain lake and took a picture of a small boy (2ish) sitting on along the shorline, and just as I was about to take the picture he turned back to look at me. I really liked the way it turned out. My next question is about converting an image to black and white, then putting some color back in.

Currently I'm using photoshop and what I do is create a copy of the background layer, desaturate it, then create a layer mask and erase where I want the color to appear. Is there a better way?

Here are some sample photos.

 

[Big Mike]

Your method for 'selective color' is great.

However, using 'desaturate' isn't the best way to convert your image to B&W. There are several other methods that allow a much greater degree of freedom and creativity.

 

[erewnoh]

Aha! Like the nifty Image>Adjustments>Black and White ?

Oh, and the question about composition. The picture with the boy I used of on of the focus points right on his eyes, then moved the camera to the right while keeping the shutter button (nikon d60) half pressed. Is that the correct/best way?

I didn't want to make the boy the complete focus of the overall picture, I just saw him sitting there looking at the the view and thought "I wonder what he's thinking" so tried to capture what he was looking at. I did like the fact he looked back at me as I was taking the picture though.

 

[Chewbecca]

I don't use photoshop, I use gimp, but I believe that Photoshop has a channel mixer. That's usually how I convert to black and white, then I can adjust blue, green, and red there.
That's only how I do it, though.:mrgreen:

 

[Big Mike]

Aha! Like the nifty Image>Adjustments>Black and White ?

Try using the channel mixer, click the monochrome box and play with the sliders. There are plenty of ways to do it, a Google search will turn up plenty of good links.

Oh, and the question about composition. The picture with the boy I used of on of the focus points right on his eyes, then moved the camera to the right while keeping the shutter button (nikon d60) half pressed. Is that the correct/best way?

That method is called 'focus and recompose'. So if holding down the shutter release button is how you lock the focus on your camera, then you are doing it right.

I'd love to comment on the photo(s) but unfortunately, I can't see them. I'm behind a 'SonicWall' firewall and most of the images on Photobucket are blocked.

 

[ANDS!]

I like to convert the photograph to "Lab" (after making any color corrections) and then play around with levels (to add some contrast to the B&W), and discard the color information, convert back into a RGB-colorspace (since you cant save it as a picture document in Lab) and then viola. A nice B&W.
The above instructions assume you are comfortable with PS and no where all that stuff is.