Matching a top layer to a bottom layer

[ShadowsOfKnight]

OK, honest I have tried to figure this out on my own, but the tool explanations are far too technical for my newbie brain. 

 

What I'm trying to do:

I have a photo of two guys as the background, and two more layers on top to put a ZZ Top beard on each of them.  I cut out the beard from a Billy Gibbons photo, and trimmed it up as good as I can.  In the Billy picture he is wearing a black shirt, so behind the reddish beard are traces of black.

 

The issue:

The first guy in the background is also wearing a black shirt, so the beard blends perfectly on him.  However, the second guy is wearing a turquoise shirt, and as a result, the beard does not blend well whatsoever, and the edges are terrible.  I need a method to color change (or whatever) so that the black traces on the beard become turquoise traces, and thus blend with his shirt. 

 

I don't want to solve this with some kind of feathering or blur, because I want the edges of the red beard to be sharp, like they look on the first guy.  I think I need to solve this with a color changing technique, but now sure how to do it in Paint.net.

 

What I know

Although I'm relatively new with Paint.net, years ago I became quite proficient with PaintShop Pro doing web applications.  As I recall, there was a function of the color changer there, which would not only change from Color 1 to Color 2, but would preserve the differences in the color shades.  So far example, if you set the color changer to change a blue shade to a red shade, and set the tolerance up some, not only would it include several blue shades from the source, but it produce various shades of red in the destination.  So the result was not just a solid spot of red, but rather a nicely shaded red,

 

I have looked at the Paint.net color changer, and although I see how the tolerance level can dictate various shades of input to include, it seems to map all of those included pixels to just plain red, one exact color.  I'm thinking surely it will do what I want, but for the life of me, I can't find it in the tool or in my searches.

 

Any help greatly appreciated.

[klaxxon]

I'm not sure if I understood correctly your problem.

I think you need to cut out shirt with problems and put it in to the other transparent layer.

Then play with the colors with Conditional Hue/Saturation and finally put the shirt back in to image.

 

LE: I forgot to say, you need Antialiasing Assistant plugin.

 

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=16643

Edited July 13, 2013 by klaxxon

[pdnnoob]

The recolor tool is supposed to accomplish what you're after. Check the documentation for instructions on how to use it in case you missed something.

[ShadowsOfKnight]

I think you need to cut out shirt with problems and put it in to the other transparent layer.

 

No, it's the beard that I have cut out and placed in the upper layer.  The background layer is the photo with the two guys in it. 

 

The recolor tool is supposed to accomplish what you're after. Check the documentation for instructions on how to use it in case you missed something.

 

Thanks.  I have looked at that page, and what the example shows is exactly what I want.  I just can't figure out how to make the recolor tool do that.  Notice how on the apples in the example, the blue apple still retains all the shading from the red apple.  That's exactly what I'm looking for.  But I don't see any further links for more details on how to do the apples. If I could find that, I think I would be good.

 

Thanks for the responses.  Always appreciated.

[Daniels]

The color replace tool replaces the secondary color with the primary color. Select the color of the turquoise shirt and set it as the secondary color. You should use the color picker tool to get the exact color. Then set your primary color to black, and recolor the shirt. If you want to recolor the black traces on the beard, you can use the same principles.

[pdnnoob]

Try increasing the tolerance.