How to make background black and show the model in color

[sanven18]

Hi:

I would like to know is there a way to make the background in the picture black or dark and only show the model in color using Lightroom. Please advise if this is doable and if yes, explain in detail how to do it.
If Lightroom cannot accomplish, can you suggest any other tool.
(Note: i don't have photoshop)

Thanks,
San

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi San, welcome to the forum!

Can you show us an example of the kind of shot? Is the background already dark and just needs darkening further?

 

[Brad Snyder]

Sanven, welcome to the forums.

Without a sample to work from it's hard to tell what you're looking for. To do just as you've described, you can use Lr's Local Adjustment brush to paint in negative Exposure on the background. That will unfortunately create a problem region in the areas nearest the model. It's hard to get a natural looking border between the two regions. The Auto Mask feature with the brush will help a bit, as will using a lower Flow on the brush, and building up an adjustment region, with successive layers of brushing.

This really is more suited to a pixel editor like Photoshop CSx, or its lite version, PS Elements. Corel sells Paintshop Pro comparatively cheaply compared to PS/CSx and the GIMP is donation ware, (I can't put my hands on the GIMP license terms right now.)

If you want to do this a lot, you'll need to give some thought to your actual shot set up, lighting and exposure.

 

[jjlad]

Doing it in LR is really hard. I find the easiest is to 'edit in CS3' where I select the subject using the quick selection tool and 'copy to new layer'. I put a mask on that layer to fine tune the selection with. Then I make a copy of the base layer and do whatever to that ...blur or adjust exposure etc. I've often tried it just using LR ...with little luck.
Hope that helps.