How to make Selective Black and White images in Photoshop

Photo: ©2012 Jo Brady

One of the many questions I get in my Photoshop classes is how to do selective black and white photos where the subject is in color but the background is desaturated and turned to black and white. One of my Photoshop students, Jo Brady, happened on this fox in her yard one morning and caught it in this great picture. She wanted to turn the background black and white while leaving the fox in color to enhance its presence. So I thought I would share a step-by-step process on how to do this in Photoshop CS6. You can also do this in older versions of Photoshop including Elements.