Changing Logo Color

[otis0610]

I have a company's logo saved as a bitmap. It's just the name of their company with a squiqqly line under it. It currently is blue in color. I want to change the color of the words to black. What's the best way to go about it? Also when I import the bitmap into a file, the background of it is white - I'd like it transparant.

Thanks.

 

[dimoj]

Hello otis, you should be using Photoshop to work on bitmaps. Do you have that or other raster editing software? Let us know and we'll help from there.

 

[otis0610]

yes, I have photoshop - thanks.

 

[dimoj]

OK, open your Bitmap in Photoshop. Change the Mode to RGB (Image>Mode>RGB Colour).

Theres lots of ways to change the colour. If the logo has nice sharp edges then one method is Image>Adjustments>Replace Colour. With that dialogue open then pick the blue colour from your logo. In the replacer options you will see a SAMPLE box. That is your new colour. Just turn the lightness right down to achieve black. OK that.

For the transparent background:
Double click you BG layer in the Layers Palette to change it to a regular layer. Now just select the area you want transparent by one method or another (for example magic wand) and then hit delete on keyboard. Viola! You will have to save the file as a Gif of PNG if the file is for the net in order to retain the transparency.

If its for an Illustrator file or InDesign etc just save it as PSD and it will keep its transparency in those other apps.

(If you want the logo to look really good for print and to be ultimately scaleable you may want to consider just redrawing the whole logo in Illustrator as a vector, but thats a whole 'nother story)

 

[otis0610]

thank you sooo much for your help - both methods worked. One more thing -- after I changed the logo color to black, the edges were not as sharp -- they turned kind of jaged. Any suggestions? thanks again.

 

[dimoj]

Yeah that can often be the case with the Colour Replacer. Did you play around with the fuzziness setting while you were in there?

Try some other ways of replacing the colours if you are not satisfied. Sometimes you can get a perfect result just by selecting the colour with the magic wand and then picking a new colour and filling the selection with it.

Sometimes its best to use a combination of the marquee and lasso tools to draw the selection area yourself. Ditto the pen tool and convert the resulting path to a selection.

Hell, with a basic solid colour logo you might even get away with locking your transparent pixels and just painting the new colour right on the logo!!!

Theres many ways, you just need the time to experiment!

 

[blueark]

If it's on a white background, consider using channels rather than magic wand (which may be causing the jaggies).

Make a duplicate of one of the RGB channels (whichever one has the darkest copy of your logo) and use levels or curves to darken it even more. Now go back to the main image, double click the layer, select all and delete to make it transparent. Go to Select > Load Selection... and pick the extra channel (probably called Alpha 1). Pick a color, go to Edit > Fill... Foreground Color.

Sounds a bit complicated, but if you do it right, the quality will be as good as it can be.