Let me show you how to change color in Photoshop.
In this tutorial, we will work with five examples to help you learn everything you
need to know about color masking and adjustment layers so you can easily
change the color of anything and get realistic results.
Check out the link in the description to download the images for this tutorial.
Before we start, I would like to thank our sponsor, MSI.
I will work with the Creator Z16 laptop designed for creators.
It works great with Adobe applications like Photoshop.
Check out the link in the description to learn more about the Creator Z16.
This is the first document that we will work with.
It contains two layers, a photo of a room and a yellow circle,
which is the color that we're going to reference for the color match.
The goal in this example is to apply this yellow color to the couch.
Before we get into that, we need to understand an essential concept
about how color works inside the HSBcolor system.
If you double click on the foreground color, the color picker will come up
and you will be able to select any color you want.
When you drag over the color gradient or
the Hue slider, you will notice that the values in the HSB
boxes change depending on the color you select.
HSBstands for hue, Saturation and brightness.
The three color components we need to understand to complete this advanced
color matching technique, hue is what color something is.
Is it Orange, green, blue, magenta or red?
Saturation is the intensity of the color, a vibrant red or a completely desaturated
Gray and brightness is how light or dark the color is.
A combination of these components will
make up all the colors that you see in Photoshop.
In this example, we will match the hue
and saturation of the yellow circle onto the couch.
Then we're going to try to match the brightness as close as possible.
It's important to note that you cannot
match all the three components of the yellow color to the couch.
Because you'll end up with a flat yellow
color with no shape or detail, you need all the brightness levels,
highlights, mid-tones, and shadows to give the couch's shape and texture.
The first step when changing colors in Photoshop is to make a selection out
of the object whose color you're going to change.
In this case, the couch from the toolbar choose the Object Selection tool, then,
from the options bar, make sure that you have Object Finder enabled.
The Object selection uses machine learning technology known as Adobe Sensei
to analyze the image and find the main subjects.
Then you can simply hover over the image
the couch will highlight in blue, and you can click to make a selection.
If you're in an older version of Photoshop,
you can instead use the Quick Selection Tool
and click-and-drag over the couch to select it.
You can subtract from the selection.
If you inadvertently select an area you did not intend to select.
I'll use the Quick Selection Tool for that.
It's currently enabled,
and from the options bar, make sure that Object subtract is enabled.
Or better yet, you can hold Alt on Windows
option on the Mac and click and drag over the areas you would like to deselect.
You don't have to be precise.
You can always fine-tune the mask later.
Next, from the Layers panel, click on this icon to create a group,
you can name it color Change it's always good to name your layers and groups.
Then click on the Layer Mask icon to create a Layer Mask.
Based on the selection, we're applying the mask to the group so
that only one Layer Mask can control multiple adjustment layers.
If you need to edit the mask, you will only have to do it once.
Next, from the new Adjustment layer icon,
create a solid color fill layer and click on the yellow circle to apply that color.
Then press. Okay.
Currently, the yellow solid color fill
layer is applying all three color components to the couch,
the hue saturation and brightness, so it's completely flat.
To solve this issue,
you can use the blending mode to use the hue and saturation of the yellow
color, but keep the brightness values of the couch from the blending mode.
Drop down.
You'll notice the four blending modes below this line.
These blending modes control one or more color components.
Hue, Saturation, color, and luminosity.
Select the color blending mode to apply both the hue and saturation of the yellow,
but keep the brightness values of the layer glow.
Next, go into the new Adjustment layer
icon and create a Levels Adjustment Layer to control the brightness of the couch.
From the Properties panel,
you can use these five sliders to adjust the brightness values.
Use the Highlight slider to brighten the couch.
And the Gamma slider, this midpoint slider, to increase the contrast.
If you made an intense highlight on the cushions,
you could drag the White point slider to the left to reduce it.
This white point controls the brightest pixel of the image.
If you drag it to the left,
the brightest point will now be a light gray and not white.
And as simple as that, we made the couch yellow.
Now, let me show you why I didn't use the Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer.
For this example, I'll collapse and disable the color change group.
Then hold CTRL on Windows command on the Mac and click on the Layer Mask
thumbnail to load the couch as a selection.
Then I'll create a hue Saturation adjustment layer.
I'll adjust the hue slider to get yellow.
Then I'll increase the Saturation, and this is where the problem arises.
When you adjust the lightness slider to get the brighter yellow,
you'll wash out the shadows of the couch, making it look very flat.
Even if you click on the colorized
checkbox and apply the proper hue and saturation.
You will still have the same problem when you adjust the lightness by splitting
the components into two layers, you have complete control over the color
and brightness and you don't lose the shadows on the couch.
This does not mean that the human saturation adjustment layer is useless.
It could be quite useful in some
circumstances, as you will see in this tutorial.
Now let me show you how to change the color of a shirt to both white and black.
We'll use a similar technique as before.
First, we'll select the areas we want to adjust.
Then we will create adjustment layers to target those areas,
but this time I'll use a Quick Selection tool to make my initial selection.
I'll select the Quick Selection tool
from the toolbar and I'll click and drag over the shirt.
Remember, if you make a mistake,
you can hold Alt on Windows, Option on the Mac to subtract from the selection.
As you drag with the selection active, create a group.
You can name it "Color Change."
Then, click on the Layer Mask icon to create a mask based on the selection.
Now from the new Adjustment Layer icon,
create a Levels Adjustment Layer, then create a healing Saturation
adjustment layer from the Properties panel.
Bring the saturation down to negative 100.
Enable the Levels adjustment layer from the Properties panel.
Drag the two top right sliders to the left to determine the brightness.
Then you can drag the bottom left slider
to the right to determine how dark the darkest Pixel should be.
Off black will work great.
Then you can drag the bottom right slider
to the left to determine how bright the brightest Pixel should be.
An off white will work in this case. And by the way,
if you see something in this video that you enjoy or you think will help
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It really helps me out with the YouTube algorithm.
I would really appreciate it if you did.
Now let's change the Levels adjustment layer.
To create a black shirt, you can click on the reset button to reset
the Levels adjustment layer and do the opposite.
Drag the two top left sliders to the right to darken the shirt.
Then you can use the two bottom sliders to determine how dark the darkest Pixel
will be and how bright the brightest Pixel will be with objects such as shirts,
you'll rarely have pure black or pure white.
By the way, you can use the same technique.
If you're starting either with a black or white shirt.
But keep in mind that if the shadows and highlights are clipped,
meaning that there is no information or detail in those areas,
you will not be able to bring back the missing information.
Let me show you an advanced example.
Sometimes making selections by hand can be very difficult.
In this case, the red plot pattern is
complicated to select using traditional selection tools.
Instead, we will take advantage of the On Image Adjustment tool within
the Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer, but before we continue,
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And now back to this advanced method for changing color in Photoshop.
Start by creating a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer
and from the Properties panel,
notice that the range is set to "Master."
This setting will apply any adjustments to the entire image.
But if you enable the On Image Adjustment tool,
then Hover over the red pattern and click.
The range will now read "Reds," and the two gradients below
will show you the range of colors that this adjustment layer is now affecting.
The top gradient shows the original color
and the bottom gradient shows the color it becomes.
They both look the same now because we haven't made any adjustments.
The colors found within the two solid
lines will completely change, and the colors between the solid line
and the triangle will have a gradual transition.
These ranges are editable.
You can simply drag these icons to adjust the range.
When you drag the HSL sliders, you will now only change
the hue, saturation, and lightness of the selected range of colors and not the entire image.
I'll select the Zoom Tool and zoom in.
Notice that not all the red hues change.
To fix this, you can increase the range
of colors by dragging these sliders accordingly.
Photoshop will then colorize
the previously unaffected Reds in the image.
You can double-click on the hand tool to fit the image to screen.
One issue you'll probably encounter is that you will inadvertently change
the color of something you did not intend to change like the skin tones, in this case.
You can quickly fix this issue by creating a Layer Mask
that only affects the red pattern.
To do so, select the Hue and Saturation Layer Mask.
From the Properties panel,
click on the Invert button to make a black Layer Mask.
With a Layer Mask, white reveals and black conceals,
so a completely black mask will hide the entire colorization effect.
You can then selectively paint
the colorization effect in the areas you like.
To do so, enable the Brush Tool from the toolbar
and set white as your foreground color.
Then use the bracket keys on the keyboard to adjust your brush size.
You can find the bracket keys to the right of the letter P in North American keyboards.
Now you can paint over any area that should be green.
This is my result.
You can now click on the Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer Thumbnail
to bring back the settings in the Properties panel.
Then, from the drop-down, make sure that you select Reds.
This is very important because if you make
an adjustment while the Master range is active, you will adjust the entire image.
Notice that when I select Reds, my prior adjustments are there
and I can continue adjusting the hue,
saturation
or lightness.
In this case, the lightness slider is all you need, since we only adjusted small
areas without huge shifts and highlights and shadows.
Next, I'll show you an advanced Layer Mask trick
to target the highlights and shadows.
I'm sure you'll love this technique.
We'll use this photo of a tree and the goal is to make the leaves purple.
You could use the same technique as a previous example.
First, we'll create a loose selection around the leaves.
Select the Lasso Tool tool from the toolbar,
then freehand a selection around the leaves so that our adjustment
doesn't affect the grass or other areas of similar color.
With the selection active, create a Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer.
Notice that my selection becomes a Layer Mask,
and any adjustments I make will only affect the contents of the mask.
Then enable the On Image Adjustment tool and click over the leaves.
Photoshop will change the range to yellows.
At this point, you can drag over the image
to adjust the Saturation, and if you hold Ctrl on Windows,
Command on the Mac as you click-and-drag, you will adjust the Hue,
set the hue to -140 and the Saturation to -10.
The problem now is that the Lightness slider
doesn't give us all the control we want.
Let me show you how to create a mask
that only affects the colors that change with this adjustment.
Start by selecting the original layer
and press Ctrl J on Windows, Command J on the Mac to duplicate it.
Then you can place it on top of the layer stack.
Here's the keyword shortcut that I think you'll enjoy.
Press Ctrl and the right bracket key on Windows.
That's Command in the right bracket key on the Mac
to jump the layer up in the layer stack,
you can use this keyboard shortcut instead of dragging and dropping layers.
Sometimes this is faster and more efficient.
Then you can click on the Blending Mode, drop-down and Select Difference.
The Difference Blending Mode makes
the areas that were not affected by the adjustment black.
And areas that change have a different color.
This is a great way of visualizing exactly what pixels and adjustment layer affects.
You can now create a Layer Mask based on the brightness of this image.
To load the bright pixels as a selection, press Ctrl Alt and the number two on Windows,
that's Command Option and the number two on the Mac.
By the way, I should mention that you may
get a notification telling you that no Pixel is over 50% selected.
That's OK. No worries.
Photoshop is just telling you
that there is a selection there, but you can't see it.
You can now delete this background copy.
We don't need it anymore.
With the selection still active, I'm going to create a Levels Adjustment Layer.
Notice that in the Levels Adjustment Layer Mask Thumbnail,
you'll see the leaves and the affected areas.
If you hold Alt on Windows
Option on the Mac,
and click on the mask thumbnail, you will see the mask.
Remember, with a Layer Mask,
white reveals and black conceals.
The brighter areas of the mask are targeting the leaves
and that's exactly what we want.
I'll bring back the regular view
by holding Alt on Windows Option on the Mac
and clicking on the mask thumbnail,
then click on the layer thumbnail and from the Properties panel,
you can adjust the brightness accordingly using any of these five sliders.
Now I'll show you one more advanced technique
just in case you need it for your creative projects.
This technique will help you with a lot more than changing colors in Photoshop.
If you go into Window,
Arrange and select New Window For and the name of your open document,
Photoshop will open this document in another window.
This is not a duplicate document.
This is the same document.
Then you can go into Window, Arrange
Two Up Vertical and Photoshop will place those two windows side-by-side.
Click on the window to the right, then hold Alt on Windows,
Options on the Mac
and click on the Levels Layer Thumbnail to see the mask view,
then go into Image, Adjustments, Levels and change the brightness of the mask.
A brighter mask will reveal more of the adjustment and a darker mask will reveal less.
And you can adjust this as you need.
Notice that the mask changes in these areas
and how it affects the corresponding areas on the actual image.
We place the same document in two windows
to see both the mask and the result simultaneously without having to apply
the change and having to come back to make the adjustment.
When you're done adjusting the mask,
you can close either of the tabs and they'll click on the icon to see
the before and I'll click again to see the after.
Now let me show you how to change the color of a white or off-white background,
and we will use Blending Modes for that.
First, you can create a Solid Color Fill layer.
Select the color that you would like the background to be.
I'll make mine blue. I'll press OK.
Next, you can right-click on the Layer Mask and delete it.
Then change the Blending Mode to Multiply.
Select the background image.
From the Select menu.
Choose "Subject" to use Artificial Intelligence to automatically select the main subject.
Then enable the Color Fill Layer.
Hold Alt on Windows Option on the Mac
and click on the Layer Mask icon to create an inverted selection.
From here, you can always double-click on the Color Fill layer thumbnail
and change the color of the background to anything else that you want.
And of course, you can always go back
into the Layer Mask and make any adjustments that you need.
By the way, make sure to check out my video on Saturation versus Vibrance
to learn more about how color works in Photoshop.
You can check it out here!
Also, check out the MSI Creator Z16 laptop.
The link is in the description.
My name is Jesus Ramirez.
Thank you so much for watching.