Struggling With Color Replace

[Marilynx]

Some time ago, I had posted a comp file of a wolf -- black, grey and white. I needed the wolf to be rust and cream.  Someone converted it, and it worked great for my mock-up.

 

I finally got around to purchasing a full-sized version of the wolf, and I'm trying to make it look like this:

 

But I don't know how. 

 

First thing I did was remove the black back drop to the wolf.  Then I cut a copy of the edge of the wolf, split it into layers depending on angle, and fur-blurred it (Effects => Blurs => Furblur). I merged those back together and slid it under the original wolf, and merged down to give a less edge-cropped and more natural effect.

 

I made a copy of that layer and turned one of them off.

 

Selected color replacer from the tool bar.

 

Selected black to be replaced and a rusty color to replace it with and got... a cream wolf with black markings.

 

No matter what I do, I can't get the black markings to turn rust. The rest of the wolf goes dark and the black remains black.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

 

[MJW]

40 minutes ago, Marilynx said:

Someone converted it, and it worked great for my mock-up.

 

Perhaps you're referring to my recoloring, done using the HSV Eraser. I explain the steps in this  comment.

[Marilynx]

Just now, MJW said:

 

Perhaps you're referring to my recoloring, done using the HSV Eraser. I explain the steps in this comment.

 

Er, the comment link takes me back to this thread.

[MJW]

Try it now. I fixed the link. Also check the earlier comment in the same thread where I explain how I softened the edge after removing the background.

[Marilynx]

On 9/28/2018 at 6:29 PM, MJW said:

Try it now. I fixed the link. Also check the earlier comment in the same thread where I explain how I softened the edge after removing the background.

 

Thanks. I am bookmarking this so I can come back to it. I think I have a nice effect now. Few other things I need to do to this....