Participating Frequently

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Changing the colors on specific parts of a picture while maintaining shading.

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
July 7, 2018
2 replies
3058 views

I'd like to recolor different parts of a picture with different colors but keep the shading/texture on it. I've tried googling, but the answers don't seem to work too well for me. I tried making color blend mode layers stacked on top of a cut of the specific part I want colored, but then when making them all able to be viewed, they just overlap and ruin the colors. Do I specifically HAVE to do precision painting on the piece to get it to work? I tried color replacement tool but it only seems to make it pink.

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Correct answer davescm

If you already have the sections on separate layers, put your color layer above each section layer and set blend mode to color.

Now Alt+Click in the layers panel on the border between each section layer and the color layer above it. That will clip the color layer so that it only affects the layer directly below it.

Dave

Norman Sanders

Legend

One of the limitations of RGB Mode is that any. change in color also changes the degree and color of the modeling and texture in an image. Switching to Lab Color Mode allows far more control of the shading and local contrast since it s in a separate channel from color. In addition, in this illustration, one of the Lab Channels a offers mask potential with almost no brushwork at all.

Top Row: Original Image, the L channel of Lab Coior, the b channel of Lab Color which governs blue and yellow

Bottom Row: Final Image, the modified L channel, the masks made from the b channel using Curves

(Not shown is the Spike mask made easy from the. a channel which governs magenta and green.)

With masks applied to duplicates of the original layer layers and Edit > Fill set to Color.

Terri Stevens

Legend

Hi Norman,

It's a shame people shy away from any mention of LAB mode on this forum. It's really the best method for color changes and also getting the very best out of saturation, you can even emulate HDR. There seems to be a mental block about using it which is a shame. On the other hand for people like me who do use it, it gives a competitive advantage as others can't make out how you have managed to squeeze such spectacular color from dull, lack lustre images.

Terri

Martin_Bns

Inspiring

Hi there, it's complicated to answer because your question is very generic my friend.
It'd be nice to see the image you want to work on and how you need to separate these colors.

As a generic rule, use the COLOR blanding more in order to affect just the colors and not the light or the "shading".

cheers,
Martin

D

DarkSpyro92Author

Participating Frequently

I want to recolor this as a reference image for another picture I'm hoping to commission of an artist. For instance I'd like to recolor the blue body to purple, the purple eye to a deep sapphire blue, the yellow chest to an icy blue, and the pink spikes to a lighter shade of purple. However I want to keep the shading instead of just using the paint bucket tool.

Like I said before, what I tried doing was cutting the separate pieces and putting them on layers, then making new layers on top of the cut piece layers for the recoloring, but it doesn't work like that as it also colors everything below it on the chain.

davescm

Correct answer

Community Expert

If you already have the sections on separate layers, put your color layer above each section layer and set blend mode to color.

Now Alt+Click in the layers panel on the border between each section layer and the color layer above it. That will clip the color layer so that it only affects the layer directly below it.

Dave

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