Are you having trouble changing the color of an object
from black to something else in Photoshop?
The problem with changing black into any other color is that you need a lot of control over
the brightness and contrast.
Unfortunately, using one single adjustment layer usually doesn't give you the control
that you need to perform this task.
For example, if you're using the hue and saturation adjustment layer,
you might get good results if you make black into a dark color.
But if you want to make it into a light color,
you will wash out the image when you adjust the brightness.
In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how you can use two layers;
one that controls the hue and saturation,
and another that controls the brightness and contrast
to make black into any other color in Photoshop,
including white.
I think that this method gives you the most control.
But most importantly, it gives you the best results.
Hi, I'm Jesus Ramirez from the Photoshop Training Channel.
Before we get started, I would like to mention that you can follow along with any image that
you like, just make sure that the photo has a lot of detail in the shadows.
If you use a photo of low quality that has a lot of shadows that are clipped, meaning
that there is no detail, no information; that the shadows are completely black,
then you might have trouble changing the color, or realistically changing the color to something else.
Make sure that you're working with a photo of good quality.
If you want to follow along with the image that I'm using, then I'll place a link down
below in the description.
That is an Adobe Stock image, and it will have a watermark, but you can license it to
remove it if you like.
Or you can use a watermark version and just practice with that.
Okay.
Let's get started.
The first step is to isolate the area where you're going to apply the color change.
This is not a masking tutorial, so I already have a selection ready to go.
If you don't know how to make selections or how to mask, then I'm going to place a tutorial
down below in the description that teaches you all about that.
But in this case, I already have one saved.
So I'm going to go into Select, Load Selection, and I have a selection saved called Shirt
Selection, and I'm going to press OK, and that's going to load the selection that I have saved.
So the first step for you will be to make a selection around the object whose color
you want to change.
Once you have a selection active, go into the Layers Panel and click on the New Group icon.
And it will create a layer group, and we're going to use this group to stay organized
with the adjustment layers that we create to make the color change.
And that's what I'll call the group.
I'll double click on the name to rename it Color Change.
Then, I'm going to place all my adjustment layers inside of this group.
So one group will contain all the adjustment layers required to make the color change and
best of all, I only need one Layer Mask to control all the items inside of that group.
With the selection active, I'm going to click on the Layer Mask icon to create a Layer Mask.
Notice that in the thumbnail, now I have a white silhouette of the shirt.
That means that the areas in white will reveal the effect that I'm going to apply with the
adjustment layers in that group.
If I hold Alt on Windows, Option on the Mac, and click on the Layer Mask thumbnail, you'll
see my mask.
White reveals, black conceals. In this case, we're revealing whatever is inside of this group.
I'm going to hold Alt or Option again and click on the Layer Mask icon to bring back
the original image.
And now I can start creating the adjustment layers that are going to help me create the
color change.
First, I'm going to create a levels adjustment layer.
And this levels adjustment layer is going to help me control the brightness of the color.
I don't need the Layer Mask, so I'm just going to delete it.
Right-click and select Delete Layer Mask.
You don't really need to delete the Layer Mask if you don't want to.
But I wanna make things clear and I wanna show you guys that the only Layer Mask that's
controlling anything in this composite is the Layer Mask in the group, but you can leave
it in there if you want to.
Also, just so that we know what each layer is controlling, I'm going to change the name
to Brightness because this levels adjustment layer will control the brightness of the new color.
Next, I'm going to create a solid fill adjustment layer. So I'm going to select Solid Color
from the New Adjustment Layer icon.
And the color really doesn't matter.
For now, just so that we can see a change, I'm going to switch it over to blue and press
OK.
What I'm going to do now is, once again, delete the Layer Mask because we don't need it.
And this adjustment layer will control the color, which is both the hue and saturation.
Of course, you can name your layers whatever you like, but I'm just naming them accordingly
so that you know what they're controlling.
Next, I'm going to change to blending mode and I'm going to click on the dropdown and select
Color.
Color applies both the hue and saturation of the color selected, and it leaves a luminosity
to the layers below.
So the luminosity is controlled by the original layer and by this brightness levels adjustment
layer.
And I'm just going to click on the Foreground Color Picker to show you something.
Notice that no matter what color I select, there's only three components; hue, saturation,
and brightness.
Hue is what color it is, saturation is the intensity of that color, and brightness is
obviously how bright or dark that color is.
So no matter what color you select, you're dealing with these three components.
So with these two layers, I'm taking control of these three components; brightness and
hue and saturation.
Now what I can do is double click on this Foreground Color Picker and I can select any
color that I want.
So if I wanted to make this shirt into a light, lime green color, I can. I can press OK.
Then you can select the levels adjustment layer, the one we called Brightness and adjust
these points.
The point furthest to the left controls the dark pixels, the one in the middle controls
the contrast, and of course, the one on the right controls the bright pixels.
And obviously you have to keep fine tuning the points until you get the result that you want.
If the result is too dark, you can click in the black point here at the bottom and drag
it to the right.
Now, no color will be darker than this shade of gray.
So the darkest color will no longer be black.
The darkest color will now be this shade of gray. And the opposite is true if I drag this point.
In this case, the brightest point on the image will be white, but if I drag this to the left,
the brightest point will be this shade of gray here.
In this case, I'll reset the white point and I'll drag the black point to the right.
Now I just want to clarify what the points do in the levels adjustment layer, the ones
on top versus the ones on the bottom.
The ones on top determine what pixels in the image either become the darkest pixels or
brightest pixels.
These sliders at the bottom control how dark or how bright those pixels are.
So as you just saw, when we drag the black point to the right, the darkest pixels were
no longer black they were a shade of gray, so that's the difference.
And if you change your mind and you want to change the color to something else,
double click on the Color Fill Layer
and select a different color
and adjust the levels adjustment layer accordingly.
If you want to turn black into white, all you need to do is set the color fill
to any color that doesn't have saturation.
So it could be black, white, or any shade of gray.
In this case, I'll just make it white to keep things consistent, but it really doesn't matter.
I'll press OK and once again, I'll come into the brightness adjustment layer and I can
adjust it accordingly to get white.
And I'm also going to drag the black point to the right so that the darkest color is
just a dark shade of gray.
And from here you can just keep adjusting these points to get the result that you want.
So let me know down in the comments below if this technique was new to you.
Also, if this is your first time at the Photoshop Training Channel, then don't forget to click
on that Subscribe and Notification buttons.
By the way, if you enjoyed this tutorial,
then I have another one that I think you'll like.
It's on how to make a white background into any other color.
I'll place a link to that tutorial down below in the description.
Thank you so much for watching, I'll talk to you again in the next video.