Hand Coloring vs Selective Color in Photographs

Selective color-A color photograph turned black and white except for
the red tones on the face. (Hand coloring image coming soon)

There are two basic ways of mixing black and white and color in photographs. Hand coloring applies to printed photographs and selective color applies to digital. Hand coloring involves taking a black and white image and adding colored paint by hand whereas selective color takes a color image and turns all but one (or more) area(s) black and white—so essentially hand coloring turns black and white into color and selective color turns color to black and white. Both techniques are most commonly applied to portraits.

Hand coloring takes a lot of skill to apply the paint in just the right way to make it look right. It is very time-consuming and small areas are tedious. Selective color can be done by anyone with access to an image editing program. If anything, selective color is cheesy and overused. Many photographers refuse to do it because it always looks dumb.