Replacing Color...
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Tip #109
Replacing Color...
Qc Tang visits from singnet.com.sg, and asks about:
"I would be grateful if you could answer my question... I'm retouching an old photo whose color has faded. I want to replace the color of the dress of the girl in the photo but was not very successful. I use the various adjusting methods under the image menu, but I couldn't get rid of the tinge of the original color of the dress and the color also doesn't look natural. Could you please tell me how I can replace the color of the dress and at the same time retain the shadow created by the crease, as well as the tone. thank you. [ looks to me like cut out the shape, convert to grayscale, then 'colorize' ... is that the way you'd approach it?"
Master Joe Kling answers:
You could go at this a couple of different ways. I am assuming that there are other colors in the image, besides what's in the dress, which the reader wants to keep. So we'll isolate and work on just the dress.
- First, as you suggest, create a selection which isolates the dress.
- Save this selection in the channels palette as a mask.
- -Copy the dress to the clipboard.
- Make a new grayscale document. It will already be the right size because PS used the contents of the clipboard as a size reference.
- Paste the dress into the new grayscale document.
- Convert that document back to RGB or CMYK, same as the original file.#1. Use Hue & Saturation to colorize the dress.
OR
#2. Pick an appropriate color, using the PS Color Picker, and use the Paintbrush or Airbrush tool, blending mode set to COLOR.Use a hard brush. Opacity setting will determine how heavy the color is applied. Be sure to put a check in the layer box to PRESERVE TRANSPARENCY.
- When you copied the selection into the new document, in PS 4.0 it goes to a new layer along with a layer mask.
- When the dress is colored the way you want, copy it to the clipboard.
- Go back to the original document and activate the mask selection you saved.
- Do a Paste Into and the dress will pin register back into place.
That will just about do it.
Joe
[Thanks, Joe for the help. Don't forget folks, we'd like to hear from you too!]