How do I change color wit Photoshop

[legendboy]

I've tried for an hour and I can't get it to work right. I have photoshop 6. How the hell do I do this?

[eur0]

whatcha mean? the color of ur car?

[Fluidic]

How do i make my silver car purple? How do i make my red car black?

I would say that this is the most time consuming of all of the 3 photoshop exercises. This procedure takes a steady mouse and a good knowledge of the brush and eraser tools. I highly recommend reading the Help file on "Using Quick Mask Mode" in Photoshop, it explains it very well.

Also, have these settings in your preferences: Under "Display and Cursors" you should have "Painting Cursors" set to "Brush Size" and "Other Cursors" set to "Precise"


Let's change the color of the 25th Anniversary GTI. This is an excellent picture to use because the lighting is good and the background is clearly defined from the car itself.

Here is the car before any alteration:



The operation you will spend the most time doing is selecting the area of the car that is the body color. There MANY ways to select something in photoshop, selecting using "Color Range", "Replace Color", or the "Magic Wand" are just some of the ways you could start this off. I feel that the most reliable way to select the parts of the car that you need is through "Quick Mask". What is Quick Mask?? Well, it allows you to enter a mode that enables you to make your selection with the painting and erasing tools of Photoshop. The area that is not selected will be colored over with a red shade, you are not effecting the actual color of the car, but just painting in the selection. You can toggle in and out of Quick Mask mode by using Hotkey "Q". Before entering this mode you must have your foreground color set to "black" and your background color set to "white" to do this, click on the area circled in red below:



You will notice that when you are in "Quick Mask" mode the title bar of the document will say (Quick Mask) in file name. To begin selecting areas of a car switch to the "Brush" tool (Hotkey "B") and zoom in on a portion of the car (Zoom - Hotkey "Z"). Here i have zoomed in on the rear and begun selecting the body:



To draw the selection you will need to switch brush sizes frequently and have good control of your mouse. To easily change brush sizes use the "[" and "]" keys to toggle between the brushes in the brush window. If you have the default brushes and have not edited them, use the top row of brushes. The second rows edges are too blurred to be right for this job. Another good technique to master is using "Shift" to draw a straight line between two points with the brush tool. To do this click once to set the 1st point of the line, then move your mouse to the second point and while holding "Shift" click again. This is good to use in areas like the side skirts or anywhere there is a straight edge on the car. You may spend anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes painting over all the color areas of the car's body. If you happen to paint in an area you don't wish to, use the "Eraser" (Hotkey "E") to erase the red shaded area. The eraser tools options should be set to "Paintbrush". The brush size of the eraser can be controlled the same way as the brush tool, by using the "[" & "]" keys. Once you have painted over all the color parts your file should look like this:



Then, exit out of Quick Mask mode "Q", you will notice you have a marquee selection that looks like this:



Now this selection is inverted from the selection you want to invert the selction press "Ctrl + Shift + I" or go under the "Select" menu and chose "Inverse"
Now your selection will look like this:



Now hit "Ctrl + C" to copy the area to your clipboard. Then, hit "Ctrl + V" to paste the selection back to the file. Notice that when you paste, it automatically creates a new layer with just the selected area in it. That layer should look like this is you turn the background layer invisible by clicking on the eye next to layer in the layer manager:



You can finally change the color of the car now. With Layer 1 your active layer, goto menu "Image" then "Adjust" then "Hue and Saturation". Play around with all the sliders, you should see the image update to your changes. Also try adjusting the colors with "Colorize" checked off. When you are satisfied with your new color, click "Ok". Layer 1 can be set to visible or invisible by clicking the eye next to the layer to see the color difference.

This is what your file should look like:



Now if you want to save this color change so you can post it, flatten the layers. If you wish to save this file with the layers intact to change the color again later, save it as a .psd file.

I hope all this is understandable. This is a pretty advanced operation. Practice drawing freehand with the mouse using the brush tool. This operation takes time and patients.

[legendboy]

Hell ya! Thanks Peter! That was more than an explination!

[Audi Kid]

holy shit peterq

[eur0]

yea i just use the trace tool to cut the car out, then copy and paste a new layer then just "color overlay" and turn the shade down a little...

[legendboy]

Mine does not look like urs, I can see it working a bit, how do u change brushes and stuff without un clicking the mouse button cause when I do and go to paint more when I hit already painted surface it gets darker when I overlap it!

[legendboy]

Holy crap......that was nice, fast, I suck.

[eur0]

hehe its pretty easy, ill show u how to do it with photoshop6, thats what i use...

[Fluidic]

The above instructions were posted by "turborave" from the Vortex

Peace

[legendboy]

Originally posted by tbk49
hehe its pretty easy, ill show u how to do it with photoshop6, thats what i use...

okee, Peters instructions are really good but I can't seem to get that to work with 6.0

[buh_buh]

Originally posted by tbk49
yea i just use the trace tool to cut the car out, then copy and paste a new layer then just "color overlay" and turn the shade down a little...

dude, that is such a sweet color!

[Davan]

Originally posted by buh_buh

dude, that is such a sweet color!

You're biased to blue!

[buh_buh]

Originally posted by Davan


You're biased to blue!

no! Just electron blue.

[eur0]

only cause its the nicest color there is

[Rydog]

Originally posted by buh_buh
no! Just electron blue.

did somebody say Electron Blue??

Originally posted by tbk49
only cause its the nicest color there is

yer damn right!! although, i may be biased too, hehe.

[Shoobs]

Can you buy photoshop?Is it expensive?

[lammer]

shoobs, its very expensinve.

[Ben]

Originally posted by Shoobs
Can you buy photoshop?Is it expensive?

yeah man, Go Buy it, its worth the money!

[boi-alien]

Originally posted by Shoobs
Can you buy photoshop?Is it expensive?

it's expensive but it's soooooo worth it.... i just picked up a copy of ps7