"How do I remove only some of the color from an image, but also leave some color in certain areas?"

I have seen this question in a lot of communities of late, so please, allow me to show you how to do it. In this tutorial, you will learn that it is quicker and easier to go from this:

to this:

than you think.
(Photo credit: Dawn Gillam. Yes, I took it myself rather than snagging from the web.)

There are many, many ways to do this. Many of the methods you will find involve selecting either everything you want colored, or everything you don't. I have found that these methods tend to leave too sharp an edge between the color and the non-color, or leave a "halo" around the colored part. My way takes a steady hand, but is basically a one-step process.

Open your image in Photoshop. To be honest, it is usually best to remove the color from the image before shrinking it into a base. I didn't do that for this tutorial, to make the example images smaller, but that is how it should be done.

Now, set your colors in your tool palette to black and white. The easiest way to do that is to just press D without a tool selected. Now, select your paint brush tool. Choose an appropriate brush size for your image ... you want to be able to go over large areas at first ... then set your options pallet to "color" and 100% for opacity and flow. Like this, although your brush size should be bigger, since you are doing it the right way and starting with a larger image:

(Click for a larger image)

Now, all you do is use your paintbrush tool and go over the larger areas where you want the color removed. As you move the brush along, all the color will be taken out, it's magic I tell ya! Move to smaller brushes as you get closer to the areas you wish to keep colored. Make sure you don't accidentally go over any parts where you wish to keep color, and if you do, remember, ctrl+Z (undo) is your friend. Here is mine, only part way done, just a few swipes with the paintbrush tool so far....

and here with all the color removed except for on the flower:

From here, you can go on to crop or resize your image to icon size, add text, brushes, borders, other effects to finish out your icon. Here's mine, done:

I upped the contrast a bit, added text and the heart brush on her cheek, used USM on the base, added a border and viola.

If you have questions or comments about any of my tutorials, if you would like some one on one Photoshop or graphic building help, or if you have a suggestion for future tutorials or other resources, please email me. I would love to hear from you there! Or please consider dropping some coins into the Tip Jar to help pay for this site's bandwidth usage.

NOTE: This is my photography, and my daughter, so this icon IS NOT up for grabs, please don't take it. If you feel you really, really want to use it, please email me and we'll talk about it