Using ACDSee for Selective Coloring

Connie November 13th, 2007

Selective coloring in ACDSee is SO easy now! Before ACDSee 10 in order to achieve this I had to use masks in ACDSee Photo Editor.

This can be done in both ACDSee 10 & ACDSee Pro 2!

Open your photo in ACDSee by double clicking on the thumbnail.
Use the pull down menu on the Palette Icon & choose Edit Mode

A new pane opens on the left

Click on Selections
With Freehand Lasso tool selected, draw around the item
stay fairly close, but it doesn’t have to be exact.
when you get back to where you started the selection will be made
Click on Invert, Click on Done if you’re satisfied with your selection

Click on the Color - in the left pane & this is when the magic happens!

Move the Saturation slider to the left to desaturate the background

To make up for the area around the image, on the top

Move the slider for the Feathering to the right.
Decide what looks the most natural.
Click on Done

This will bring you back to the Main Menu of the Edit Panel

Click on Finished Editing at the bottom
And your photo is finished!

Popularity: 83% [?]

ACDSee 10 , ACDSee Pro 2 , ACDSee Tutorials

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11 Responses to “Using ACDSee for Selective Coloring”

# Thomason 15 Nov 2007 at 1:02 am

Great tutorial of an interesting feature. You make this feature seem very easy to use.

It is tutorials like these that really show the functionality of the product. I look forward to seeing more in the future.
# Connieon 15 Nov 2007 at 10:25 am

Hi Thomas,
Yes, it’s very easy to do.
# W Treeon 13 Dec 2007 at 5:17 am

Must be me being daft but I have ACDSee10 and cannot see this screen. When I click on edit, all I see is the large floating pane (or attached pane) editor. If I double-click on a thumbnail all that appears is a large version of the image against an otherwise plain screen. How can I access the features which you use, please?
# Robert Hargraveson 13 Dec 2007 at 9:27 am

Ahh! I never knew there WAS a select lasso tool! It’s not in the left hand menu bar. Great.
# John Smithon 13 Dec 2007 at 10:29 am

Great tool, never knew it was in version 10 till I received the email with this link. Using the Photo Editor was difficult so did not use much. Keep up the good work with this product. I have been a user since the first version, and keep being impressed with each new version.
# George Andersonon 13 Dec 2007 at 12:08 pm

I know it is not your program, but my reasons for mentioning PhotoShop and PhotoDeluxe will become clear. I have found most Adobe PhotoShop and similar products cumbersome. Their old PhotoDeluxe which was once packaged for free with Kodak and a few other cameras (about 2000?) was very easy and actually had every function I have ever needed hidden in the “advanced features menu”. The old program seems much faster and more intuitive to use than Photo Shop - for example, in PhotoDeluxe there is always a “+” and “-” icon present to blow up the image or shrink it even in the middle of a complex procedure of cutting and pasting or modifying a few pixels…. Select by several methods, change the selected area in any way or distort it, move it, clone parts of it, partly delete it - all kinds of good things. DO YOU YET HAVE A PRODUCT THAT DOES ALL THE THINGS PHOTODELUXE DID? It was faster to use than Photoshop - but is getting old and slightly prone to “crash” in the middle of a project. Oh yes, Photo Shop is also too costly for home use. Nobody has yet found me a good replacement for this great old program. IF YOU “CLONE” PHOTODELUXE, ADD ONE FEATURE: “DRAW A CIRCLE” - we often use the program to make sketches for speeches or training.

PS: Adobe probably wishes they had never bundled PhotoDeluxe for free with cameras! It is now available on ebay for about 20 bucks - likely not legitimate copies. Even new in package ones that are surely legitimate are maybe 50 bucks (I bought an unopened “version 4″ a year ago for my daughter.)

PPS: I am VP for engineering at a medium size company, have taken over 20,000 digital photos and modified many of them. I REALLY like your batch rename function, and find duplicate function. I and others who try it REALLY like the old PhotoDeluxe. I compare PhotoShop more to the disliked “I-drive” BMW puts on many of their cars…too complex to enjoy using even if good at it.
# Kenon 13 Dec 2007 at 2:49 pm

I have ACDSee pro 2 updated and I cannot see these pages as shown above .

My program keeps crashing as I use the controls in raw mode ..
# Jandyon 14 Dec 2007 at 2:13 pm

Didn’t know about the lasso either.

Can you also crop to this selection?
# Rob Worthon 15 Dec 2007 at 7:41 am

Great article. Took me a minute to figure out the lasso was hidden behind the square selection icon.

I didn’t use the lasso in manual mode. I used the auto mode on a really fury cat. Go to http://www.photographyfromanyangle.com/ for a peek. The cat is below the blinking eyes. It is lounging on a gray sofa, parts of which are visible.
# Connieon 18 Dec 2007 at 12:29 am

Thanks to everyone for their comments! I will answer the questions here:
W Tree - When you have the large version of the image, Click on F & the icons will show across the top

George - the combination of ACDSee Photo Editor & ACDSee Photo Manager are a great pair & will probably do everything plus more that you did in Photodeluxe. Let me know if you need links to tutorials.

Ken - I will email you

Rob - great photo!
# Tonyon 21 Dec 2007 at 2:56 am

Hi Jandy, no you can’t crop to a selection made in the editor. Remember that an image always has to be rectangular, so even if we had that feature I don’t think it would work as you would expect.