automatically Fill-in or paint a certain part of an image

[David Holt]

Hi all, i have no experiance with photoshop other then simple inage re-sizing. A friend of mine told me that photoshop could automate some tasks, so i was hoping the community could help me out with suggestions on how to, paint the botton part of this image black.(the clear see thru part, preserving the white holes and film) the reason i need this is because the software i use to seperate the film from the strips expects a black sprocket hole leader not a clear one, so it can't detect the holes.

Thank you for your time.

David.

P.s Appoligies for the type of film, its the only master film i have with a clear/see thru sprocket header.

[S_Gans · Accepted solution]

Hi. What you seek is absolutely available in Photoshop, but takes a little knowledge. To specify where in an image a change is to happen, we have to make a selection of that area. Please review the content on https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/how-to/selection-tools-basics.html - to help you to do that (take a look at the Magic Wand tool). Then, to fill it with a color, please look at https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/how-to/add-color-fill-layers.html 

[David Holt]

Thank you for replying. I've managed to use the quick selection tool to
select the whole sprocket area, then a subtract with the tool the holes.
Then I adjusted the selection hue to change the colour black.
Works perfect. But when I record that as an action and add it to a script.
Some it misses some of the holes, about 5% of the time. Automation is not
easy lol.

[David Holt]

Sorry for my grammar and spelling.

[S_Gans]

Yeah - selections and automation are very rarely compatible. Since there's SO much variety in making selections, Adobe never seems to have bothered to try to give it any power in scripts, or actions... no matter what, it's going to want to ask what you want...