Photoshop questions... Need some help

[Richio1]

I recently purchased PS Elements 7 on eBay (for only $16.00 which I thought was a good deal) and have been playing with it but am having trouble.

All I want to do is change the color of my car to get a visual on a couple different colors I am considering. I have watched more than a dozen YouTube videos and if I wanted to change eye or hair color I'd be a pro... Even the car color change videos don't help as I can't get the colors I want from changing the hue or saturation.

I have tried by going to enhance, adjust color then change color but using the paint brush hides all the body lines and the color selection isn't what I want.

So how can I:
1- use a color off another picture. Say I find a color I like can I take it off another picture and use it in PSE?

2- how can I simply change a red car blue? Again, using an automotive paint color not a paint brush pallette color? There has to be a way to select the red and replace with a blue, for example.

3- once I figure that out I would like guidance on how to black/Greg out the bumpers and wheel centers to determine which shade to go with. Maybe add a stripe on the hood/decklid.

I have a sample picture that I am using. It is the silver Kenny Davis 69' Camaro with the Rushforth Rated-x wheels since that is what my project will have. I would like to change the color to a dark grey and the black cowl/trunk stripe to the light silver. Seems easy enough but I have burned atleast 8-10 hours trying to figure it out with no success.

Thanks for the help and guidance!

[XcYZ]

Color replacement tool. :thumbsup:

Blacking out/shading is easily done with layers and reveal all masking. Create a duplicate layer, then add a third layer that is sandwiched between those two, then fill it with black. By playing with the opacity of the 2nd layer, you get a simple blacking/greyed out of the area that you revealed using the reveal all mask on the top layer. It works best by making the bottom layer a black and white image.

Once you get it figured out, you can get creative by using black/white gradients on the reveal all mask and get something, for example, like this image (http://www.scottgulbranson.com/football/football_10_16_10/BW_grad_DSC_9602.jpg) that I did of my son, or like this one (http://www.scottgulbranson.com/football/football_10_16_10/BW_grad_DSC_9288.jpg) I did of one of his team mates. :cheers:

[SRD Art]

What he said. :thumbsup:

I have an older version for Photoshop when I use it so not sure how it applies to what you're on. I use the pen tool to trace an area, turn the tracing into a selection using the icon at the bottom of the paths palette. Then you can use the image adjust > Hue/Saturation tool to get a basic color to work with. From there you can "paint" over the base color in a layer on top to get high contrast different shades and hues.

To match a color of another car, bring it in on another layer and simply use the eye dropper color select tool on the color you like and it'll put that color in the palette. Then paint away. When you're done grabbing colors just dump that example photo layer from the illustration.

Hope this all makes sense.

PS those are great football photos XcYZ, nice work!

[city_ofthe_south]

No idea what features Elements has so if you can't find what I'm talking about ... apologies. Quick and dirty? Take your original image and desaturate, this would normally be under mode> adjustments> desaturate. Make a new layer above your original, pen tool the area you want to be your new color, fill with said color using paint bucket or whatever. To do this right click after you've outlined your car with the pen tool (pen tool should be set to "paths"), choose "make selection". Set blending mode to "Overlay" ... done. Blending mode should be on your layer palette. Don't think the pen tool is an advanced feature, you don't even really have to pull curves if quick and dirty is what you're looking for. It's not pretty but it's a quick way to try out several colors without coloring things like chrome or whatever, or put in stripes. You can try it, save it, reselect that layer, use another color, over and over in seconds. If you find something you like you can use the same method to make a nicer image later.

Quicker still is what Ben talked about. Mode> Adjustments> Hue/Saturation. Just move the sliders and watch with amazement. Anything with color will be affected though.

Ben talked about sampling a color from another image. To add to that, if Elements has it, use the "median" filter under noise I think. This just sort of blobs the image together and simplifies and solidifies the colors so you can eye dropper a dark, medium or light value of your color. Most images, especially poor quality, will have pixels filled with colors that might surprise you and median gets rid of that and gives your more pure color to choose from. There really is no such thing as an "automotive" color. Your image will more likely than not, be RGB, of hit or miss quality and it's up hill from there. You just do the best you can, especially if you're new to this. Don't be shocked if altering an image doesn't produce exactly what you want in color.

And in case you haven't read enough, google is your friend http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/elements/replace_color.html this is a tutorial for Elements. It's slightly more advanced but will give you step by step ... nothing you can't do. Upon further examination, the second part of it is dead simple.

[Richio1]

Awesome stuff guys... thanks!

[ZVT]

You may also want to try using curves or rgb.I find using those instead of hue/saturation is much easier and you get alot more colors variations.

Just play around with the line going diagonal


Mode> Adjustments>Curves

[Otis]

I received a PS Elements disc with the tablet I bought, and to tell the truth it was set up so different, I only played around with it for a few minutes before I decided I hated it and went back to CS2. It seemed to me that it didnt have the main tools that I use, although I may have just not given it a chance because of the way different layout.

[SRD Art]

Good thoughts everyone, I picked up a couple new tricks myself from this.