Rose Street, between its namesake mosaics that welcome passers by at either end, is a quiet retreat behind the busy thoroughfare of Edinburgh’s Princes Street – boutique stores and character pubs in the shadow of the high street giants. I snapped the original photo for this exercise four years ago off the back of a 30 hour flight. You’ll forgive the washed out sky and stark contrast I hope; what I’d tried to do was draw focus to the red umbrellas in the bottom left, but the result was disappointing. Now aided by tintii, however, we can truly make those brollies pop.

tintii is a Photoshop filter plugin for selective colouring. It takes a colour photo, churns through its colour profile, and with a few quick mouse clicks from you, the user, keeps a handful of those colours while draining the rest into a black and white backdrop. It’s a commonly used technique, known variously as colour popping, selective colouring or colour selection. It’s been put to popular effect in movies such as Schindler’s List and Sin City. You’ll see it in magazines and plastered on billboards all over. The point is that tintii makes it easy, without the tedious selections and masking that characterise alternative approaches.

This tutorial will step you through basic use of the tintii plugin. Use the page numbers below to navigate to the next page to begin.

Please drop me an email to let me know if you have tintii photos up on other websites, or even just send your work to me, it’s always great to see!

Here’s a taste, but see the photography page for the full set:

Plus a special set for my girlfriend Alison:

Enjoy!