Portrait picture into one colour image

[jydmon]

Hi All,

I am trying to edit a picture to have just one colour.

I am creating a label that will be printed on a cotton bag. The back is cream colour, I have written text in darkbrown and now want to add an image but with only one colour and the other colour should be empty so that when it is printed, the empty colour will be the colour of the cotton bag.

Reason for this is art and the fact that tit is cheaper to print one colour than multiple colours. 

So far, I have been able to cut out the image and this is now saved. Now I want to give it a colour so that it is printed as two colours i.e. bag colour and the darkbrown colour

Edited April 17, 2015 by jydmon

[MJW]

I can't quite tell from your description what form the image is in. Also, I assume when you say the printing is one color, you mean the color is either there or not there, rather than in continuous shades of the color. If the printing can be done in continuous tones, I'm not sure if there's a really easy method (there ought to be, and likely is) One method is to add a new layer; fill it with the dark brown color; make it the lower layer; set the upper (image) layer's blending mode to Color Dodge (I think that's the best choice); adjust the image layer's brightness and contrast; then flatten the image.

 

(Assuming the image can't be continuous tones) If the image is already just a single color, say, black on a white background, set the Primary color in the color menu to the desired shade of brown, select the image with the Magic Wand tool (with Global fill mode set in the tool option bar), then fill the selection with Edit>Fill Selection.

 

If the image is black-and-white (various shades of gray), there are several options for converting it to a single color. Download and install Ed Harvey's plugin package. You can convert to a single color by using Effect>Color>Threshold, or Effects>Stylize>Halftone. The threshold will convert it to black and white, so you'll need to convert the black to brown, as already explained. The Halftone will convert to the Primary and Secondary colors, so you'll first need to set the Primary color to brown and the Secondary color to white.

 

If it's a color image, you could first convert it to black-and-white with Adjustments>Black and White, but actually, both the Threshold and Halftone plugins work with color images.

 

The Halftone plugin is quite nice, and gives a variety of interesting effects.

 

(I'm not sure it really makes any sense to consider setting the color to the dark brown color you want to be on the item. It would matter if you were using a color printer, but if you were, it would probably be as easy and cheap to print it multicolored. If it's going to be silkscreened, all you probably need is a black and white version from which the mask is prepared. The printed color is determined by the color of the ink used, which has nothing to do with the color of the original image. The same is true for most any other kind of specialized one-color printing process. Really, it all depends on what the person printing it wants.)

Edited April 18, 2015 by MJW

[Maximilian]

Here you have another possible method using Red ochre's Two Tone Threshold

 

Steps I followed on my particular picture (you can experiment with the settings depending on the features of your own image):

1. First, I set the primary color to dark brown. In RGB values this is 101 for Red, 67 for Green, and 33 for Blue.
2. Then I go to Adjustments -> Two Tone Threshold and use the settings shown in the picture below

 

Comparison between original and final result:

 

I hope this helps!

[jydmon]

@ Max - Yes it does help but I don't have two tone threshold in my version. 

[Maximilian]

You need to install Red ochre's plugin pack (follow this link to download it). There are several plugins included in the pack besides Two Tone Threshold, but believe me you won't regret installing the full pack. It's only too good!

[Maximilian]

I also highly recommend his other plugins which are not included in the pack and whose links you can find by the end of the first post in that link I gave you. They all offer a wide variety of artistic possibilities you can experiment with for this or other projects you may have.

 

And you can also try out some of what MJW suggested above. Those suggestions combined with mine plus some other things may give you an even more desirable result. It all depends on what you're aiming at. I'll let you know if I come up with further ideas!

[jydmon]

It worked. Fantastic. Thanks Max. 

[Maximilian]

Welcome! Glad I was of help!