Changing colors in Photoshop is a simple but fun process. In this lesson we will learn how to change the color of various objects in pictures.
We will change the colors of objects in three ways: in different ways. In the first two we use special functions of the program, and in the third we paint the desired areas manually.
Method 1: Simple replacement
The first way to replace color is to use a ready-made function in Photoshop "Replace color" or "Replace Color" in English. Best result it shows on solid-colored objects. For example, let's take an icon and open it in Photoshop. Next, we will replace the color with any other one that interests us.
So we changed one color to another.
Method 2: Color Range
The second method, according to the scheme of work, can be said to be identical to the first. But we will look at it in a more difficult image. For example, we chose a photo with a car.
As in the first case, we need to indicate what color we will replace. To do this, you can create a selection using the color range function. In other words, highlight an image by color.
The result has been achieved. If there are areas of the original color left in the image, the procedure can be repeated.
One way to focus the viewer's attention on this particular balloon is to reduce the saturation of the other balloons below it. I don't want to change the actual color of the balls, just the intensity. To do this with the Color Replacement Tool, I'll change the Blend Mode in the Options Bar to Saturation:
If I wanted to completely desaturate the balloons, removing their color completely, I would set the Foreground color to black, white, or any of the shades of gray, but since I want a more subtle effect, I'll just use one of the subdued colors from images. To do this, I'll hold down the key to temporarily switch to Eyedropper Tool mode and click on the desired color. I'll choose a low saturated yellow color. The color itself doesn't matter, since the Saturation blend mode doesn't change any of the original colors. It will only affect the intensity:
So, my foreground color is set to low-saturated yellow, the blending mode is “Saturation”. Now I'll just paint over the balloons, adjusting my brush size using the left and right bracket keys and changing the Tolerance value in the Options Bar as needed. The picture below shows how I paint a bright orange balloon from top to bottom:
Disadvantages of the tool: problem with the brightness of modified objects
As I wrote at the very beginning, the Color Replacement Tool cannot be used for all cases. Now I will show you this with an example.
First, I'll restore my balloon photo to its original state by pressing F12. Now let's say I want to change the color of the top individual orange ball to a dark purple color like some of the balls in the group:
To select a replacement color, I hold down Alt and click on the purple ball:
I set the Blending Mode in the Options Bar to Color and start painting over the orange ball to change it to a dark purple. Here is the result:
Hm. The ball turned out to be purple, of course, but this color is quite similar to the colors of other purple balls, isn’t it? The problem is that this color is much brighter than the other purple balls, and this is because the original color of the ball was much brighter than the dark purple that I used as a replacement sample. The "Color" blend mode in this case does not affect the brightness of the object in any way.
Well, then let's try to apply the blending mode that affects the brightness. Of the four available blending modes, this is “Brightness” (Luminosity). I'll restore the photo to its original state by pressing F12, selecting this mode in the options bar, and again trying to paint the ball dark purple. Result:
Well, looking at the result, we can say with confidence that the result was complete nonsense. The Brightness blend mode definitely made the ball darker, but it's still orange, not purple, and besides, the texture detail is almost gone, the ball looks like a flat blob.
This is the drawback of the Color Replacement tool. It's great for simple tasks where you only need to change the hue and/or saturation of a color, but if there are too many differences in brightness values between the original and the new colors, this tool probably won't work.
Sampling for replacement
In the Options Bar, directly to the right of the blending mode option, there are three small icons. Each of these icons represents a different selection of pixels to replace with the Color Replacement Tool, and they work in exactly the same way as the Background Eraser Tool. From left to right: Continuous, this option is enabled by default, the next is Once, and the last is Background Swatch. To switch between selection modes, simply click on the desired icon:
These settings control how Photoshop selects pixels to replace colors in an image. If the first option, Continuous, is selected, Photoshop continually determines new colors to replace. The sample is located under the moving cursor, exactly under the crosshairs. If, when moving the cursor, another color falls under the crosshairs, it becomes the target color for replacement. All pixels of that color within the cursor circle are replaced. This sampling option is used most often and works best when there is a lot of color variation within a site.
The "Once" option takes as a sample the color that you initially selected and the sample does not change depending on how many colors you further drag the cursor crosshair through. This option is best if you need to replace a large area of solid color. You can also try this option if you find that with the Continuous option, the color being replaced bleeds into nearby areas and the Tolerance option does not help.
The last option, Background Pattern, is used very rarely, if at all. This option replaces any color in the image that matches the background color in the color palette. This option may only be useful if neither of the first two options works.
Limits
This setting determines the location of the pixels to be replaced and works in exactly the same way as the Background Eraser. The option has three options: “All pixels” (Contiguous), “Adjacent pixels” (Discontiguous) and “Find Edges”. Of these three, you will really only use the first two:
The "Adjacent pixels" option (set by default) means that only those pixels that are directly adjacent to the cursor crosshair will be replaced. Pixels separated from pixels under the crosshairs by some other color will not be replaced, even if they are within the cursor circle and exactly match the color.
An alternative is "All pixels". With this option, all pixels matching in color and located within the cursor boundaries will be replaced.
Anti-Alias
This option is enabled by default and serves to smooth the edge around replacement areas. I recommend keeping it turned on at all times.
In this Photoshop tutorial, I will tell you all about the Color Replacement Tool. This tool is capable of changing the color of an image object without any fuss or hassle.
You might be surprised that there are a lot of similarities between the Background Leaf and Replace Color tools, even though they seem to be completely different tools in their purpose. Both of these tools use the same technique to detect pixels in an image that need to be modified. The only difference is that the Background Eraser removes these pixels, while the Color Replacement tool changes them to a different color.
The Color Replacement tool isn't the most professional way to change hue and may not always give you the results you want. But it is good for simple tasks, such as changing the saturation and hue of objects. Let's see how it works in practice.
(Color replacement) was first introduced in Photoshop CS, and if you're working in Photoshop CS or CS2, you can find it in the group along with the Healing Brush tool. (Healing Brush). Click and hold the healing brush icon in the toolbar (Healing Brush) to select the Color Replacement tool from the drop-down list (Color Replacement Tool).
If you have Photoshop CS3 or CS4, like me, click on the Brush tool icon (Brush) and hold it until a drop-down list of other tools in the group appears, select “Color Replacement”.
After selection, the cursor will change to a circle with a cross in the center. The background eraser has the same cursor shape.
It is convenient to adjust the brush size using the square bracket keys [ or ]. The left bracket reduces the size, the right one increases it. To adjust the hardness (hardness) brushes, add Shift key press (Shift+left square bracket makes the edges soft, Shift+right square bracket makes the brush harder).
When you drag the Color Replacement Tool on your image, Photoshop continuously scans a color swatch located in at the moment under the cursor cross. This is the color that will be replaced with the current foreground color (Foreground). Other pixels included in the area of the round cursor also undergo color replacement as it moves over the object.
For example, if you place the cursor on an object's color blue and the foreground color is red, the color underneath the cursor will change to red in the cursor's area of effect. IN top menu You can configure the tool to work in different ways, but we'll cover those details later.
The foreground and background colors icon is at the bottom of the toolbar. The program's default foreground color is black.
To change the foreground color, click on the top square (color sample) and select any new color from the color palette. I will choose green. Click OK when finished, closing the palette.
If you look again at the foreground and background color icon, you will see that the top square has changed to the color you selected (I have green). Now if I paint on the image with the Color Replacement tool (Color Replacement Tool), then the original color will be replaced with the foreground color (green).
Let's take a photo of a girl with a balloon as an example.
She is happy, but wants her ball to turn green. What can we do about this? Select the “Color Replacement” tool and, by clicking on the ball, begin moving inside it. Since the foreground color is green, the blue color of the ball will change to green when you drag the cursor inside the object.
We continue to change the color of the ball, holding down the mouse button while moving the cursor, until we paint the entire ball.
If you suddenly go beyond the boundaries of the processed object (ball) and affected the nearby area, the Color Replacement tool (Color Replacement Tool) these pixels will also change to green.
If you accidentally go beyond the object, simply undo the previous step by pressing Ctrl + Z on your keyboard, or undo several previous steps by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Z.
Tolerance/Tolerance (Tolerance).
Everything seems to be going fine until it comes to processing the edges of the object. If you look closely, you will notice that the edges of the ball are not completely closed; a blue stripe is noticeable.
At the beginning of the tutorial, I mentioned that the Color Replacement tool has various options that can be adjusted in the options bar at the top. One of these parameters is Tolerance or Tolerance (Tolerance). Tolerance determines how sensitive the tool is to the color it is replacing. By default, the program's tolerance for the Color Replacement tool is 30%, but for our case this is clearly not enough. Let's increase it to 50%, which will allow us to influence a wider range of colors, and again draw along the edges of the ball. Now these areas have also been changed to a full foreground green color.
I'll finish up the work on other areas of the ball by increasing the Tolerance value a little more. (Tolerance). This is how the magical transformation turned out.
Select color from image.
In the previous example, I chose the foreground color for the ball using the color picker. But, you can choose a color sample from image elements, for example, a girl’s blouse. To do this, with the “Color Replacement” tool active (Color Replacement Tool), press the Alt key and your cursor takes the form of a pipette (Eyedropper Tool).
Now, click with an eyedropper on any area of the photo whose color you want to use as a reference for future replacement. Look at the foreground and background color icon and you'll notice that the top square is the color you selected.
I liked the pink color of the blouse, that's what I'll choose.
Now, I'll run the tool over the ball one more time until it turns pink.
Notice the significant benefit of the Color Replacement tool (Color Replacement Tool) before a regular brush (Brush). After all, by changing color, the ball retains its volume, texture and ratio of light and shadow, which would be impossible when using a Brush (Brush). The object would simply become flat with normal painting.
Blending Modes (Blend Modes).
The reason that the tool is able to change the color of an object without losing its texture is to use different modes mixing. The overlay color interacts with the previous color to create this effect. You can see these modes in your top settings menu, there are four of them: hue, saturation, color and brightness (Hue, Saturation, Color, and Luminosity). By default the program is set to Color mode (Color)
If you've ever read about color theory, you know that color is a combination of three components: hue, saturation, and brightness. You can choose any blending mode depending on which of these three aspects of the original color will be affected.
Tone mode (Hue): Only the base color itself will change, but the saturation and brightness will remain unchanged. This mode is suitable for images where the color is not very intense, since the changes are quite subtle.
Saturation mode (Saturation): Only saturation changes, hue and brightness remain the same. This mode is useful for reducing color intensity or removing color completely.
Color mode (Color): This is the default and changes hue with saturation. The brightness remains unchanged. Typically used more often than other modes.
Brightness mode (Luminosity): Changes the brightness of the original color to the overlay color. Hue and saturation do not change.
For the following example with blending modes (Blend Modes) I chose the photo with the balls again. In the picture, the orange ball seems to be trying to fly higher than all the others, let's work with it.
One way to make a ball stand out from the whole group is to reduce the saturation of the remaining balls. In the blending modes tab, I'll select the "saturation" mode. (Saturation).
If I wanted to discolor the balls altogether, I would choose white, gray or black as the main color. But I want the effect to be more subtle. To do this, I'll take a color swatch from a less vibrant ball by holding Alt and clicking with the eyedropper (Eyedropper Tool) at him. Why am I taking a sample from a yellow ball, since I'm going to work with an orange one? The fact is that I need a sample of the saturation of the object, and not its hue. When blending mode is "Saturation" (Saturation) Only the saturation will change, and not the tone of the ball being processed.
Now, having selected the “Color Replacement” tool, we begin to paint on those balls on which we want to reduce the saturation level, making them paler than usual. Adjusting the brush size (in square brackets), if necessary, and tolerance level. In the example below you can see how different the original shade of the ball is from the changed one.
We continue to paint over all the balls to highlight the top one.
Brightness Issues (Brightness).
There are some difficulties using the Color Replacement tool (Color Replacement Tool) in cases where there is a large difference between the brightness of the original color and its replacement. Let's say I wanted to change the hue of the top orange ball to the purple color of the other ball in the bunch. Everything seems quite simple? But…
First, let's return all the colors of the balls to their original state. To do this, go to the File-Return menu (File-Revert). Now, let's take a color sample from the purple ball by clicking on it with the Alt key to switch to the eyedropper.
In the top menu, set the blending mode to “Color.” (Color) default. Next, I will paint over the orange ball to change its color to purple. Here is the result:
Hmm... This is, of course, purple, but its shade is not similar to the color of the other purple balls in the bunch. The problem is that our orange ball is much brighter than the purple balls. Our blending mode setting does not affect brightness, but only affects color.
Let's try to make our ball brighter by changing the Color Replacement tool's blending mode to Brightness. (Luminosity).
I reversed the previous steps to return the ball to its original orange color. Now, with the "Luminance" blending mode (Luminosity) Paint the ball dark purple.
Here you go! Everything didn't go the way we wanted. The “Brightness” mode, of course, made the ball brighter, but it is still an orange color and, moreover, the texture of the object has disappeared. The problem here is that there is too much difference in brightness between objects. The Color Replacement tool is great for simple tasks where you just need to change the hue or saturation of a color, but if there are too many differences between the brightness of two elements in an image, you'll need to choose other methods.
In the top menu you can see three icons depicting pipettes. Each of the three options is a certain way choosing a color sample to work with (Sampling). Let's list them from left to right: sample: continuously (Continuous), it is set by default in the program; sample: once (Once); sample: background sample (Background Swatch). To switch between the three options, simply activate the selected icon.
Let's take a closer look at these options.
Sample: continuous (Continuous). With this option, the color selection will be made by the tool continuously while you hold down the mouse button and move the cursor over the image. This option is good when you want multiple, complex color changes in an object.
With a single sample (Once) Photoshop takes into account the color selected by a single mouse click, no matter how long you move the cursor over the image. This setting is best for replacing large areas of uniform color.
Sample background (Background Swatch). You won't use this option as often. Here the background color replaces the original one. Only those pixels that match the background color will be replaced in the image, which means you need to select the shade that best matches the image in the color palette by clicking on the lower square of the foreground and background color icons. Try adjusting the tolerance value if your shade isn't quite close to the original shade.
The next option in the Color Replacement tool settings controls the location of the pixels to be replaced and is called “Constraints.” (Limits). This option has three color detection options: adjacent pixels (Contiguous), non-adjacent (Discontinuous) and edge selection (Find Edges).
Of the three existing ones, you will often use the first two.
By default, the program is set to the adjacent restriction type (Contiguous). With this type of limitation, the Color Replacement tool (Color Replacement Tool) recolors the pixels located within the cursor, namely under the cross. The effect of the tool will not affect in any way those pixels that correspond to the selected color, but are separated from the cursor by an area of a different color. Of course, unless you physically move the cursor to these zones.
Constraint type non-adjacent (Discontinuous) Replaces all pixels within the tool cursor.
The last type of edge selection (Find Edges) Replaces color in areas that are tinted with the selected color, preserving the outline of the edges of the object.
And, the last option in the top settings menu of the Smoothing tool (Anti-aliasing). Activate it if you need smoothed edges of the image; if you want precise outlines of the object, on the contrary, uncheck the box.
That's probably all I wanted to tell you about it the necessary tool. I hope that your skills in working with Color Replacement will be useful to you more than once.
Namely about the team Replace color. This tool is located in the menu.
Let's look at the dialog box.
At the top Selection There is a tab from the “Color range”.
Using an eyedropper, a sample of the color that needs to be changed is marked on the picture sample. Pipette with plus adds an area pipette with minus- subtracts.
Setting the parameter Fuzziness.
Using the slider, you determine the boundaries within which the color shades will change. With maximum variation, the replacement will include almost all shades of the selected color present in the image. With minimal scatter, only those pixels that exactly match the sample will be replaced.
New in Photoshop CS4 additional option Localized Color Clusters, designed to define areas of the same color. Its use allows you to more accurately highlight the color in the image.
At the bottom Replacement In the “Replace Color” dialog box, there is a tab called “Hue/Saturation”, with the help of which, based on the name, you select the color and shade to replace.
Let's look at color replacement using a specific example.
Step 1.
Open the image in Photoshop. We immediately create a duplicate of the main layer.
Step 2.
Let's go to Image - Correction - Replace Color. I want to change the color of my T-shirt.Step 3.
If you have CS4, then immediately put a tick opposite Localized Color Clusters. I increase the Scatter to the maximum value. Using an eyedropper, mark an area on the image. Next, I choose the color I want to change to. I click on the colored square labeled “Result” and select the shade I need.
It can be seen that in the shadow area the color is not highlighted enough. I select the Eyedropper “+” and click on the image in the area of the folds on the T-shirt.
The T-shirt was completely dyed, but at the same time, unnecessary areas, for example, the face, were dyed. I select the Eyedropper “-” and click it in the face area.
As you can see in the image itself, the lips and ears are still painted; this defect can be corrected with the help of an eraser.
Most successful this method Color changes work on contrasting images. Also in images where there are few related shades to the color being changed.
And finally, one more piece of advice. If the image still contains several areas of the same color, and only one of them needs to be changed, for example, then before using the command Replace color, you should highlight the area that requires color replacement. Any selection tool can help you with this.
I wish you success!
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There are dozens of ways to change color in the program Adobe Photoshop. The easiest and fastest is to use the special command Replace color or “Replace color”. This function is convenient to use when working with any object in a photograph. This command is also useful when replacing the color of several small details scattered chaotically throughout the image. This article describes in detail step by step instructions to complete this simple task.
Open the image in Photoshop. Create a duplicate of the main layer. To do this, go to the “Layer” tab in the top menu and select “Duplicate Layer” or press Ctrl+J. Go to the “Image” tab. Select “Adjustments” – “Replace Color”. A dialog box will appear. At the top of it, check the box next to Localized Color Clusters . Below there are 3 pipettes. With the first one selected, click on the area of the object where you want to change the color. It will appear in the top square of the dialog box.
