This is driving me nuts because it seems like such a simple thing to do. I've got a picture of a primed fiberglass door and want to try different colors, while keeping the slight amount of detail in the door frame, etc. I have a specific color swatch that I'd like to use (rather than adjusting hue/sat to achieve it) but all the common techniques I've tried either just slightly change the color from white to pink, or go gray. How does one change the color of an object that is white, while retaining detail?
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Mike Lewis on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
how do I change color of a white object while retaining some detail? 2
- Thread starter trwalp
- Start date
-
1
- #2
Hi
Try creating a layer with a mask for the Door.
Fill the area that you want to change the color of with a solid color in the family you want.
Green, red, blue or what ever.
Go to the transparency slider in the layers pallet and lower the transparency so that the detail of the door will show through the color leaving just a tint.
Now use the color controls to change tint and intensity etc. until it looks the way you want.
Mike
Try creating a layer with a mask for the Door.
Fill the area that you want to change the color of with a solid color in the family you want.
Green, red, blue or what ever.
Go to the transparency slider in the layers pallet and lower the transparency so that the detail of the door will show through the color leaving just a tint.
Now use the color controls to change tint and intensity etc. until it looks the way you want.
Mike
Ps
If you are not seeing as much detail as you want try copying the door to another layer on top of the color layer and then make that layer transparent but with more contrast to enhance the detail.
If you work with it you should be able to get more or less what you want.
Mike
If you are not seeing as much detail as you want try copying the door to another layer on top of the color layer and then make that layer transparent but with more contrast to enhance the detail.
If you work with it you should be able to get more or less what you want.
Mike
-
1
- #4
...would simply setting the white door layer to multiply with color layer underneath suffice? (with layer mask applied to color layer)
...anything pure white becomes your target color and in the detailed areas the target color will be mixed in with the darker shaded pixels...
andrew
============
============
...anything pure white becomes your target color and in the detailed areas the target color will be mixed in with the darker shaded pixels...
andrew
============
============
...is in my quick example attached here:
...another white door layer on top set to multiply (color burn or linear burn) with opacity setting applied can bring more detail back...
andrew
============
============
...another white door layer on top set to multiply (color burn or linear burn) with opacity setting applied can bring more detail back...
andrew
============
============
...this would be another setup if your door is not on a white background:
andrew
============
============
andrew
============
============
- Thread starter
- #7
I appreciate both responses, but apepp employed some techniques I was not as familiar with. My source picture actually was a bit more complicated than my question described. The door is white and its trim is a color. I wanted to replace both with a single new color that I found at Sherwin-Williams paint company's site, while leaving the wall color around these items alone.
I didn't understand everything apepp did but it gave great hints. I selected the door in a duplicate layer of the original image, inverted it, deleted everything but the door, used Levels to make it as white as possible while retaining the details in the door trim, then applied a Layer Style | Color Overlay to it. I changed the Blend Mode to Multiply, which restored the trim details, then clicked on the color and pointed the eye-dropper at the Sherwin-Williams paint sample in another window. That got the door color very close to the paint sample.
I wanted to repeat this process on the trim but I first had to remove its old color and get it as white and detailed as the door. I used Levels adjustments to accomplish this, then repeated the Color Overlay steps above.
Again, thank you to both respondents for the help. I hope this resolution helps someone else in the future. Before landing here I found many other people complaining about unpredictable results when using Photoshop's color replacement tools (mostly just yielding tints of a color or a muddy gray).
I didn't understand everything apepp did but it gave great hints. I selected the door in a duplicate layer of the original image, inverted it, deleted everything but the door, used Levels to make it as white as possible while retaining the details in the door trim, then applied a Layer Style | Color Overlay to it. I changed the Blend Mode to Multiply, which restored the trim details, then clicked on the color and pointed the eye-dropper at the Sherwin-Williams paint sample in another window. That got the door color very close to the paint sample.
I wanted to repeat this process on the trim but I first had to remove its old color and get it as white and detailed as the door. I used Levels adjustments to accomplish this, then repeated the Color Overlay steps above.
Again, thank you to both respondents for the help. I hope this resolution helps someone else in the future. Before landing here I found many other people complaining about unpredictable results when using Photoshop's color replacement tools (mostly just yielding tints of a color or a muddy gray).
- Status