Keeping One Colour in a Black and White Photo

Sunday 14 December 2025, 14:28 by Nando Harmsen | 3,604 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You can choose between colour and black and white for a photo. Or you can combine the two. Black and white with one colour. In this article, I show you the quick-and-dirty way to achieve this easily.

I use Lightroom Classic for this technique. But you can do this with any programme, Photoshop, Affinity, Luminar, Capture One, ON1, or whatever software you use. It is important that you can manipulate colours individually.

An edited colour photo. There is a clear distinction between the primary colours. This is when the technique works best.
First of all, it is important that you edit the photo in colour. Make sure the colours are clearly present to get the best effect. You can make the colours a little more saturated if necessary. Keep it subtle.

Is your edit finished? Then you can switch to the colour panel. You will find the RGB and CMY colours there: red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow. Sometimes there are a few more.

Set the saturation of all colours, except the colour you want to keep, to a saturation of zero, or 100 in Lightroom. In other words, remove that colour from the photo. This leaves you with only the colour you want.

All colours have been removed by setting the saturation to -100 in Lightroom. Except red and orange.
Red is an almost classic colour to keep in black and white photos. But it does not have to be red alone. You can choose just blue instead. Or a combination of colours such as green and blue.

Or you can keep two colours, such as blue and green.
This method works best when there is a clear separation between the primary colours. Any 'colour contamination' can be removed with a mask if necessary. Set the saturation to zero in this mask.

If it is much more complex, or there is too much 'colour contamination', an edit in Photoshop or Affinity will be necessary. But in many cases, this quick-and-dirty method will work well.

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