Delightfully Desaturated

In an effort to get the most out of my remaining days of my free trial with Adobe's Lightroom, I've started randomly experimenting with settings just to see what kinds of whacky things I can create.  Of course, most of what I accomplish involves making some previously fine photos really, really ugly.  Every once in awhile, though, I stumble across something that really works.  I present Exhibit A:


Original:

Experiment:

And now to share my secret: desaturation.  Ok, I may have given that one away a little with the title of this post.  There are other, much more complicated ways to accomplish this look once you've mastered the art of using selection tools, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover this handy little short cut.  So, the key is to pick a photo where the colors in the subject share no common elements with the items in the background--otherwise, you end up with a fully saturated subject, and a few random streaks of color in the background.  In the "Develop Room", scroll down the toolbar on the right until you hit the "HSL/Color/ B&W" section.  You can click on individual colors (displayed in boxes below the heading, above the sliding bars), then desaturate individual colors one-by-one by sliding the saturation bar all the way to the left.  Just don't desaturate the colors featured in your subject.  Voila!  Quick and painless, huh? 

I liked this particular technique so much that I went a little crazy with it.  As I said, it doesn't really work if the colors in your subject appear in the background, too--but it was fun playing with the saturation on a variety of photos and seeing some of the surprising successes.  I've shared two of my favorites below. 

Original:

Experiment:

Original:

Experiment: