Color Replacer Tool Headache

[Marilynx]

I have never managed to master the color replacer... and I have so many possible uses for it!

 

I'm assuming that I somehow have the settings wrong.

 

I select my colors. 

 

I've been trying o change the color of a shirt in a photograph, Often, I'm trying to change hair color.

 

SO, in this case, I want a tan shirt to be teal. 

 

Unless I can do it in one sweep, I end up with color changes when the tool touches already changed color.

 

Like this. What do I need to do to change hair color without changing skin next to it, or color of the shirt without color going into the background or the skin of the subject?

 

 

[Pixey]

8 hours ago, Marilynx said:

Unless I can do it in one sweep, I end up with color changes when the tool touches already changed color.

 

This tool can be rather frustrating.

 

We were discussing this subject here a few days ago.

 

You may want to read through the subject on this tool:

 

https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/RecolorTool.html

[Disk4mat]

I would try to get the shirt on to a new layer and alter the color there using Hue/Saturation. That way if you want to change the color again in the future it will be very easy. Duplicate the image (layer) and start removing everything from the new layer that is not the shirt... Basically.

 

I know there are other (easier) ways to do this. But I usually think along the most simple, robust lines possible. Even if its time consuming.

 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

On 6/14/2023 at 5:39 PM, Marilynx said:

Unless I can do it in one sweep, I end up with color changes when the tool touches already changed color.

 

The trick is to use a large brush and keep the mouse button down until all the color is replaced. Doing it in several "steps" results in recoloring of the overlap.

 

Quick tut: (fails to mention setting the sampling mode to Secondary - but then it was 2012 )

 

[Marilynx]

On 6/15/2023 at 2:21 AM, Ego Eram Reputo said:

 

The trick is to use a large brush and keep the mouse button down until all the color is replaced. Doing it in several "steps" results in recoloring of the overlap.

 

 

Yes, I'd figured that. BUt the problem is, when that big round brush sweeps over the skin next to either hair or shirt, it changes the color of THAT, too. 

 

[Marilynx]

On 6/14/2023 at 2:08 PM, Disk4mat said:

I would try to get the shirt on to a new layer and alter the color there using Hue/Saturation. That way if you want to change the color again in the future it will be very easy. Duplicate the image (layer) and start removing everything from the new layer that is not the shirt... Basically.

 

I know there are other (easier) ways to do this. But I usually think along the most simple, robust lines possible. Even if its time consuming.

 

 

Actually, that's what I've been trying. But trying to cut out a head of hair, for instance, is kind of like, impossible. You just can't get all the wisps. 

[Disk4mat]

If you are inclined, post up the head and we can take a look at it. Even if you create a new layer and used the line tool to trace over the fine lines, you can erase on the original and merge your traced layer to restore the fine lines that got erased. People here on the forum are full of ideas and solutions. We just need to know what we are shooting for.

[Marilynx]

On 6/17/2023 at 12:01 PM, Disk4mat said:

If you are inclined, post up the head and we can take a look at it. Even if you create a new layer and used the line tool to trace over the fine lines, you can erase on the original and merge your traced layer to restore the fine lines that got erased. People here on the forum are full of ideas and solutions. We just need to know what we are shooting for.

 

Okay, this is simply a picture of actress Amanda Tapping which I snagged off the web to practice on and learn with. I am presently hunting through the various royalty-free sites to find something similar which I can buy. My goal is to turn her into a red-haired green eyed person in a teal shirt. In the second one, made a little larger, I was able to use color replacer to change blue eyes to green (I have a palette set up with eye, hair and skin tones which I created from a site somewhere which listed colors. I'm in the process of using a tint/shade site to create those from, for instance, basic eye, skin, or hair colors so I have more lights and darks in the same tone.)

 

I tried using the wand on all kinds of settings to select just the hair and place it on a separate layer, but in too many cases, the hair color was too close to the skin tone for the wand to separate them, even at very low percentages. So my next step was to use the lasso to cut out the hair, which sorta worked but you lose the feathery wisps. Tried Gaussian blur, tried AA's Assistant, but it still looks "clunky" in my estimation. I also played around with Boltbait's Oil Painting plug in, and managed the third picture. I definitely like picture 3. 

 

[Pixey]

And what a fine result you have done @Marilynx 👍

[Disk4mat]

WTG I am a fan of version 3 as well. Looks like you got to a place where the project is going in the right direction.

[Marilynx]

20 hours ago, Pixey said:

And what a fine result you have done @Marilynx 👍

 

It's decent. But the hair doesn't look right -- not wispy enough on the edges. Not to mention I did something strange to her jawline. 

12 hours ago, Disk4mat said:

WTG I am a fan of version 3 as well. Looks like you got to a place where the project is going in the right direction.

 

Yeah, BUT...!

 

This one isn't going so well. This is for a character who is a priest.He's had a treatment called "Renewal" which makes him physically in his 20s despite being around 170. It is traditional for those who are Renewed to have silver hair.  So, starting here:

 

A photo I liked, to practice. (Looking for suitable one to buy. This is Orlando Bloom, from a fannish wallpaper.) Used Boltbait's Oil Painting on it. Added a clerical collar. Then I used Color Replacer. Uhm. No. Just.... NO, on #3. Guy looks like he's wearing some sorta weird shower cap! So, having made a copy of the hair before CR, I tried something else: Boltbait's Black & White. This gave a really nice silver, but the guy still looks like he's wearing a weird shower cap! I also copied the eyebrows to two separate layers and used Motion Blur on them to get a sorta hairy effect. (I tried Fur Blur, but the curls just Did Not Work for tiny areas like eyebrows.) Black & White gives me a real nice silver but I can't get the hairline to work, even with trying to copy just it to a layer and do Black & White on it. I can't feather it in.... I tried, on different copies, all sots of variations of Object => Feather, Gaussian Blur, AA's Assistant, and have not resolved either the inside of the ear or the hair line.

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Marilynx

[Lemonade]

Keep the shower cap on
I'd use brush tool (fairly small size 2-6, on a separate layer) and add hair details. Maybe use Smudge plugin to fade colors. Use some reference photos for grey hair.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Lemonade

[Marilynx]

19 hours ago, Lemonade said:

Keep the shower cap on
I'd use brush tool (fairly small size 2-6, on a separate layer) and add hair details. Maybe use Smudge plugin to fade colors. Use some reference photos for grey hair.

What's a brush tool? It sounds like something I could and would definitely use!

 

I like Smudge and use it for a bunch of things. My one annoyance is that you cannot zoom in if you are smudging a tiny area. 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Marilynx

[Disk4mat]

The Brush tool is on the tool pallet and looks like a brush. You can press the B key to activate it... The settings will appear on your top toolbar.

 

@Lemonade has a great idea and technique! I would go with that. I was working on her the other day because it presented a challenge.

 

I started with a small size brush, set the opacity  of the color to 64 and a hardness of 20%... Brushed over the hair on a new layer. Then set the blending mode of the layer to Glow. Each time I duplicate that layer, the color gets richer and brighter.

 

I think you are doing well @Marilynx and if you keep these three things in mind you'll take things to the next level. Zoom... Hardness... Opacity. You'll be able to get the hair line the way you want it and lay down a good base color to add the details @Lemonade demonstrated. Fine lines, thick lines, brighter areas, darker etc.

 

Its nice to watch you progress. I am even learning some things along with you.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Disk4mat

[Marilynx]

Well, I obviously do not understand what I accomplish with hardness, spacing and fill.  And how that gets me to wispy stuff. FOr instance, you obviously did something different with the shirt to get it to look more "shirt like" but I don't understand what. 

 

When I try changing spacing and such all I get are dots..... like this:

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Marilynx

[Disk4mat]

Hardness will adjust how hard or soft the brush stroke is. This setting works best when used with color opacity settings. It allows you to fine tune the brush stroke. Also when using a digital pen / tablet with pressure sensitivity. So in your example that you posted you can see the soft edges in your black lines.

 

The spacing is how often will the stroke be applied to the canvas as you move the brush. Like cruise control for your mouse. Even if you keep your finger on the mouse button, it will only apply the stroke every xxx% that you specify. If you were making a string of lights and wanted to place a bulb or large dot evenly spaced, you could set the spacing to 250% and hold the mouse button and drag. Higher value = further spaced... Lower value = smaller spaced.

 

The pattern fill you can experiment with. It will give you numerous options of filling an area with a repeating pattern based on your colors. Its a tool Ive only recently started using to create texture looking backgrounds.

 

The shirt... I did my original idea of erasing everything except the shirt and using the Adjustment menu, Hue/Saturation to create colored versions of it. Here is a link to the PDN file so you can see it.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ssnaujxwxxye47cw90v07/Amanda-Tapping.pdn?dl=0&rlkey=k1sves08qeme2msgtowf6gzls

 

You can duplicate a shirt layer and create yet more colors. Like a virtual try on, Im having allot of fun with it

[Marilynx]

That's really interesting. So, you didn't bother with Color Replacer. You used Hue/Saturation to change the colors. Interesting. I will play with that. I have trouble finding the right combinations of Hue/Saturation to get the right colors. 

 

I see that you feathered her hair... but what setting did you use on the brush which allowed you to do that?

 

Did you then make a copy of the feathering (I'm not sure if you feathered a copy of the original, or if you feathered on a blank layer and then merged them.) and then use Hue/ Saturation to make it red?

[Disk4mat]

The honest truth is that in many years with various paint & photo apps, I almost never use a color replacer. They are great for swapping out to flat colors but never quite behave as you would expect. The good thing about Hue / Sat is you can see in real time as you adjust the slider.

 

Use the Hue slider first to get as close to the color you want.

The Saturation slider will darken or lighten the color itself giving finer control..

The lightness slider is good to adjust a few shades darker or brighter for even finer tuning...

 

Feathering her hair. The best part of this is I set the brush color to be very transparent. The Opacity I set to 64 instead of the default 255. I set the size of the brush to 6 px and brushed the highlights. So I used her original hair and lines. I only changed the color.

 

The second layer which is a mask layer, I painted her whole head the same color. Using the eraser I removed all the red that didnt need to be there. Like from her face, the background etc. As I got to the the edges of her hair, I made the eraser softer by setting the hardness to 10% so I wouldnt erase too much.

 

After that I set the mask layer, properties so the Blend Mode would be 'Glow'.

 

My technique doesnt work as well for Orlando's hair. His is dark being made light. Amandas was more of a lateral color change. @Lemonade's method is more efficient to get an aged look.

 

When I did age people in a different photo app, I would de-saturate the color from a persons hair using an effect brush. But out of the box PDN does not have that. There might be a plugin to desaturate with a brush.

[Marilynx]

On 6/23/2023 at 9:39 PM, Disk4mat said:

There might be a plugin to desaturate with a brush.

Well, I found this topic, which looks like it might have different brushes to make things easier. However, I have munged that up. (I suspect the paw of a Dachshund in the issue.)

 

 

[Disk4mat]

Try not to over complicate things. A new layer, some zooming, 2 or 3 different brush sizes and 2 colors and you could be there. Actually you are very close with your version. The only thing you needed was to zoom in and re-work the hairline. If you wanted to add a few highlights and darker strokes for definition that would be the icing.