Changing colors in Photoshop is a simple but fun process. In this lesson we will learn how to change the color of various objects in pictures.

We will change the colors of objects in three different ways. In the first two we use special functions of the program, and in the third we paint the desired areas manually.

Method 1: Simple replacement

The first way to replace color is to use a ready-made function in Photoshop "Replace color" or "Replace Color" in English. It shows the best results on monochromatic objects. For example, let's take an icon and open it in Photoshop. Next, we will replace the color with any other one that interests us.

So we changed one color to another.

Method 2: Color Range

The second method, according to the scheme of work, can be said to be identical to the first. But we will look at it in a more difficult image. For example, we chose a photo with a car.

As in the first case, we need to indicate what color we will replace. To do this, you can create a selection using the color range function. In other words, highlight an image by color.

The result has been achieved. If there are areas of the original color left in the image, the procedure can be repeated.

Welcome! In this article, we will show you how to change the color of a selected object in photos in Photoshop. You've probably visited the websites of car dealerships, where all the color options of cars are presented, and by clicking, you can see them all, or clothing stores, where you can also see all the color options presented. Naturally, you can photograph the product in all colors, but this is not always possible, and you need to show the entire assortment. It will not be possible to repaint complex objects with a brush, since this method does not allow you to convey, for example, the texture of clothing or all the highlights on the body of a car. Well, stop pouring water, let's get started!

Changing colors on contrasting objects

1. First, we need to copy the image layer just in case, so as not to spoil it and accidentally save it. To do this, click on the photo layer and press the keyboard shortcut ctrl+ j. This is the layer we will work with:
   
2. Now we need to create an adjustment layer. To do this, click on the “Create a new adjustment layer” button, which you will find at the bottom of the layers panel, and in the list that appears, select “Hue/Saturation...”.
   
3. This is the layer with the mask that should appear:
   
4. Now we need to change the color in the properties of the created adjustment layer:
   Please note that we are editing the red color in the photo, and select it accordingly. If you have a different color, then you need to choose that one. If the color you need is not on the list, then you should look for a solution in the following methods.
5. Activate the Eyedropper tool in the properties of the adjustment layer and use it to take a color sample from the area of ​​the photo that you are editing:
6. The next step is to select the required color using the “Color Tone” slider in the properties of the adjustment layer. You can also edit the saturation and brightness to give the desired result:
   Don't be alarmed if the entire photo begins to change color - this is normal. Then we will do everything right!
7. Once you have found the desired shade, you need to fill the adjustment layer mask with black. To do this, press the key combination Ctrl+ i, but before that, be sure to activate the layer mask by clicking on it:
   After you fill the mask with black, the photo will return to its original form. By the way, if you want to know what masks are and how to use them, then read the article Working with masks in Photoshop.
8. Now select the area to which we are changing the color. Selections can be made with a pen P or a magic wand W, if the edges are clear. If the edges are not quite clear, then it will be easier and faster to use a quick selection:
   This is how we selected the editable area:
   
9. Now take the brush B, select white and paint the mask in the editable area with white. The required color will appear:
   
10. Deselecting Ctrl+ D and look at the result. If you see that there are areas of the photo that could not be properly selected and could not be changed, then do not be upset, since we worked with a mask and everything is easy to edit. To do this you need to take the brush without selection. B with white color and carefully work on them, changing the size of the brush and its hardness. In the end, the result should please you:
    Tip: After you have changed the color, you can change the adjustment color settings in order to change the color to the desired one, without having to do all the manipulations again.

Change the colors of the object to any others

Actually exists many ways to change the color of an object in Photoshop. Previously, we already looked at how to do this using, and also learned how to change hair color in Photoshop using.

These are not all methods, today I will show two very simple ones, and in future articles I will talk about a couple more methods using other adjustment layers.

Method No. 1

I will briefly talk about the application of this method. Open the image and create a new layer (I remind you of all the techniques).

Then change the blending mode of this layer by selecting Hue from the drop-down list at the top of the Layers palette (located at the bottom of the list).

After that, select by pressing the B key, click on the foreground color indicator, in the palette dialog box that appears, select a shade and click on the OK button. Having previously selected a new layer, draw on top of the object.

If you paint over the excess, you can temporarily select the Eraser tool by pressing and holding the E key. You can prevent such situations in advance by adding a layer mask to the new layer and hiding the areas that do not need to be changed with black.

Note

If the area you are repainting is surrounded by black, white and gray, you can safely paint over the latter and they will not change at all. This is because in the Hue blend mode, areas filled with color only affect those areas of the underlying layer that already contain color.

Method No. 2

Remember the menu command? Similar menu command Replace color can be used to highlight one shade and replace it with another. This command works very well if the color that needs to be replaced is more or less uniform and concentrated in a certain area, like the car body in the picture above.

Selecting the command from the menu Image - Correction - Replace Color, you will see a dialog box of the same name.

It already has the Eyedropper tool selected, so click on the shade in the image that you want to replace. It will appear in a square with the inscription Color in the control group Selection at the top of the dialog box.

In the control group Replacement at the bottom of the dialog box, click on the square located above the inscription Result to select a new shade. When you click the OK button. If you need to adjust the selected shade, you can use the sliders Color tone, Saturation And Brightness(also found in the Selection control group). Here's what happened:

Please note that in addition to the ordinary pipette, there are pipettes with small “+” (plus) and “-” (minus) icons nearby. Use them to expand/narrow the range of shades that need to be changed.

As you can see, I overdid it a little and my car wheels also turned purple. This suggests that this method may not always be useful.

If you notice an error in the text, select it and press Ctrl + Enter. Thank you!

Hello, dear readers. Replacing colors in a picture is quite an interesting and addictive activity. Personally, I can spend quite a lot of time doing this entertainment. There are several tools that will help with this work and each of them is suitable for its own case.

Today I will tell you how to change the color of a picture in Photoshop and which method to use in each specific case. You will like it, I assure you.

It should be noted that I use Photoshop CC, but we won’t do anything specific, so you can safely start reading even if you have a simpler version of this program. Not an online service, of course, it is weak and non-functional, but in cases with CS3, 5 or 6 you will not notice any discrepancies.

Shall we get started?

Simple color correction

Equipment for high-quality photography is quite expensive, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have it. You can get good pictures using editing programs such as Photoshop. To be honest, I use this opportunity for almost every photo I post on my blog. I like the colors brighter than what is usually posted on the Internet.

By the way, if you are interested, read the article already published in Start-Luck. I’ll take a pre-prepared picture to start talking about simple color correction and get to work.

I open the “Image” tab in the top menu, and then the “Correction” category. Take the time to understand from your own experience what “Brightness/Contrast”, “Richness”, “Hue/Saturation” and other options that you will find in this tab are.

You won’t spoil or break anything, and you can always return to the original version by simply refusing to save changes when closing the picture. Just look at how certain tools behave. As they say, what you come to on your own is always remembered better than when everything is explained to you on your fingers.

For example, open “Color Tone” and pull the various sliders, you will immediately see how the picture changes colors and will be able to build a logical chain between your actions and the result. Don't forget to check the "View" box.

Color balance changes colors more strongly, the settings are more subtle and interesting.

If you want to work with a certain element, it’s enough; I’ve already talked more than once in simple and understandable language about how to do this with more than 8 tools and methods. I won’t repeat myself, it’s not difficult to find the publication, just follow the link just above.

Now I will use the simplest method - the “Magic Wand”. I just click on the object and the desired fragment is highlighted. Using the tolerance setting, I set the variation in color.

As you know, there are many shades of white, blue and any other color. The higher the tolerance number, the more shades from the spectrum the program will determine and highlight using a wand.

Change the direction of the curve and the color becomes different.

By the way, if you want to work with the background in this way, that is, the area that is outside the selection, then you need to first select it, and then in the “Selection” tab of the top menu, select the “Inversion” option.

You can remove running ants using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D.

Replacement by contrast

I talked about this method in great detail in the article. « » . Now we will quickly run through the main functions. I'll give you a little instructions, which will be enough.

This tool is ideal for replacing a bright, stand-out color in a picture. For example, a yellow apple on a white background, a red car in a green forest, or, as now, a bright girl in a dark room.

I return to the “Adjustments” section and select the “Color Replacement” tool here. Using the Eyedropper tool, which appears automatically, I select the shade that will change. In this case, I click on the curtain. Then I move the Scatter slider so that the girl becomes almost black, and all other objects have outlines ( I wrote a whole article about how to draw a black background).

Please note that the curtain and the wall still need to have outlines; simply setting the spread to 200 will not work. Otherwise, the program will not take into account shades and will paint everything unattractively with a single color. Now I click on the color plate at the very bottom of the window, under it it says “Result”.

I click through the spectrum and different shades until I achieve the perfect result.

Ready. Without repainting the photo, we got an excellent result. In just a few seconds. Now let's talk a little about the disadvantages. As I said above, it is convenient to use this method if the image has contrast. To repaint a particular girl's dress in a different shade, you will have to highlight it. I can offer another interesting one, in which much attention is paid to complex objects, for example, hair.

I’ll use the Magnetic Lasso tool myself.

Now I transfer the dress to a new layer by pressing Ctrl+J at the same time. ? Read the post that I recently prepared for beginners about them in detail.

We return to “Color Replacement” in the “Correction” section. In this case, you will have to change the hue using the “Hue”, “Saturation”, “Brightness” sliders. If I click on the “Result” box, it turns out extremely disgusting and implausible.

In my opinion, the shade of the young lady’s dress is still far from ideal, and therefore I want to blur it a little. I open the “Filter” tab and select everyone’s favorite “Gaussian Blur”.

The robe became less clear, but the shade evened out somewhat.

As I already said, this method works best if there are contrasts, so I’ll be satisfied with this, and I’ll tell you about the last tool for today.

A quick tool for complex cases and dramatic changes

I like the Color Replacement brush better than other tools for a similar task. You can find out about it in the article « » , in which I turn the most ordinary girl into a red-haired Smurf woman with blue skin.

Finding a brush is not difficult; to do this, you need to right-click on a regular brush. An additional menu will open in which you can select the desired tool.

I choose a color. Everything is as usual. Window on the right. In this case, black, and then I paint over part of the girl’s hair. Please note that all shades are preserved.

You can put green.

To change the brush size, use the keys.

I can also offer a training video on this topic.

Well, if you want to understand the program more professionally and understand exactly how this or that function works in the Photoshop program, then I offer a very useful course “ Photoshop for beginners in video format ».

Maximum useful information about tools. That's basically it. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date with the latest, useful and simple information.

See you again and good luck.

Beginners often think that Photoshop’s “smart” tools are designed to make their life easier by eliminating tedious manual work. This is partly true, but only partly.

Most of these tools ( "Magic wand", "Quick Selection", various correction tools, for example, tool "Replace color") require a professional approach and are absolutely not suitable for beginners. It is necessary to understand in what situation such a tool can be used and how to configure it correctly, and this comes with experience.

Today we'll talk about the tool "Replace color" from the menu "Image - Correction".

This tool allows you to manually replace a certain shade of an image with any other. Its action is similar to that of an adjustment layer "Hue/Saturation".

The tool window looks like this:

This window consists of two blocks: "Selection" And "Replacement".

Selection

1. Tools for taking a shade sample. They look like buttons with eyedroppers and have the following purposes (from left to right): main test, adding a shade to the set for replacement, excluding a shade from the set.

2. Slider "Scatter" determines how many levels (adjacent shades) are to be replaced.

Replacement

This block includes sliders Hue, Saturation, and Brightness. Actually, the purpose of each slider is determined by its name.

Practice

Let's replace one of the gradient fill shades with this circle:

1. Activate the tool and click with the eyedropper on any part of the circle. A white area will immediately appear in the preview window. It is the white areas that need to be replaced. At the top of the window we will see the selected shade.

2. Let's go to the block "Replacement", click on the color box and set the color with which you want to replace the sample.

3. Slider "Scatter" adjust the range of shades to replace.

4. Sliders from the block "Replacement" finely adjust the shade.

This completes the manipulation of the tool.

Nuances

As already mentioned at the beginning of the article, the tool does not always work correctly. As part of preparing materials for the lesson, several experiments were carried out on replacing colors in various images - from complex (clothing, cars, flowers) to simple (one-color logos, etc.).

The results turned out to be very contradictory. On complex objects (as well as on simple ones), you can fine-tune the shade and area of ​​application of the tool, but after selection and replacement you have to manually modify the image (eliminating halos of the original shade, removing the effect on unwanted areas). This moment negates all the advantages that a “smart” tool provides, such as speed and simplicity. In this case, it is easier to do all the work manually than to redo it using a program.

Things are better with simple objects. Halos and unwanted areas, of course, remain, but are eliminated more easily and quickly.

The ideal use of the tool is to replace the color of an area surrounded by a different shade.

Based on all of the above, one conclusion can be drawn: it’s up to you to decide whether to use this tool or not. It worked well on some flowers...