Replacing Color

[MichaelRS]

Hi all-
I'm kind of stuck here. This is a photo of one of the kids who has auditioned for my theater's winter production of the Wizard Of Oz (I am taking the head shots). http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1G4eZ2Mm51dVbYQmXO0lS4HA62cc0
The problem I am running into is that I'm trying to replace the brown flash wall reflection shown close up here http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1D0X9O2GlZrash1yDoxx7nCx2JLLn1 with the gray that is the same gray color as the rest of the backdrop. My problem comes in with the loose hair that you can see and I don't want to lose those. Thus cloning would be tedious and crude. I tried using a layer and playing around with the different modes of the paint brushes but couldn't figure out a combo that didn't seem to either blow out the background gray and everything else or that didn't just paint over the hair. Any suggestions?

Michael

[Daviskw]

Hi Michael

Is this good enough? I spent just a few minutes with it.

I duplicated the background layer. Then used the clone tool to clone as little as possible.

Then set a hard round 1 pixel brush to darken and 75 %. Then select the smudge tool. Then turning the layer on and off so I can see where the hair is below, just click and pull hair out with the smudge tool.

Butch


http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/2350/girl13xq.th.jpg (http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=girl13xq.jpg)

[MichaelRS]

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I fired off the question late last night just before exhaustion finally drove me to bed and I just got home from work.

Thanks for looking at it Butch. What you got was pretty similar to what I got though. What I was hoping was to find a way to clear out the brown background color without losing the loose strands of hair that are visible in my second example (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1D0X9O2GlZrash1yDoxx7nCx2JLLn1) (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1D0X9O2GlZrash1yDoxx7nCx2JLLn1%29 ). I know that I may be being a bit too obsessive about this as no one is really going to notice unless they look close. It's just that using the clone method makes the end result a little more "rounded" than I would like.

I don't have much experience with the smudge tool. Actually I don't have any so I'm not clear how you were able to achieve "pulling the hair which does seem to add a positive layer of detail improvement than I was able to achieve with my attempt. Can you explain a bit to me as to how you did that?

Do you or anyone else know if there is a way to just get the brown flash color to "disappear" and be replaced with the gray of the rest of the wall?

Michael

[Wendy]

Hi Michael ...

Try Enhance>Adjust Colour>Replace colour ...

It may work :)

Wendy

[Daviskw]

Here is another try at it.

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/7043/girl4sg.th.jpg (http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=girl4sg.jpg)

The hair color is too close for replacement I am afraid but give it a try.

With the smudge you can pull as much hair out as you need or like.
To use it just clone the brown out first but leave a little brown hair to pull from.
Set your foreground color to black. Pick a hard 1 pix brush from the defaults will be fine. In the option menu for the brush change the blendmode to darken. That is because you are pulling dark hair on a light background. Set opacity to 75% so it looks a little translucent. Then click in the hair and pull out. The smudge will pull some hair out. Just go slow and pull to any size or angle you want. After you do it a few times you will often use this technique when cutting people from one picture to another. If they have blonde hair on a dark background the set blendmode to lighten.

Butch

[Daviskw]

A couple more ideas...lol you could lighten the pic like below to make the hair stand out.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/7743/girl0yl.th.jpg (http://img509.imageshack.us/my.php?image=girl0yl.jpg)

Or you could also make a feathered selection of flyaway hair behind her left ear and cut and paste to fit.

Butch

[GaryK]

I gave Wendys' tip a try

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=18xH62HWm4BW1Az2utkDGRQ7a7Mo1

Just a quickie though. I could have tried to match the wall a bit better

[Daviskw]

Good job Gary... did you use the replacement tool or brush?

Also did you select an area to work in? when I did I got that same ring in the gray.

Butch

[GaryK]

Butch

I used the tool/window thing, not the brush. I hardly ever use that tool. I never really understood how it works. But I think that exercise helped :rolleyes: .

I figure with some careful tolerance playing you could get it a bit better. The other thing is, maybe the original is in a bit better shape (less compression). I found I couldn't do a thing (without losing the hair) with the full face picture.

[Daviskw]

I see what you mean I tried on the full pic and like you could do nothing.. maybe Michael will be able with his full version.

Butch

[Pauline]

haven't got to this lesson and tried it yet, but in How to cheat photoshop he recommends using the smudge tool, set to a small brush size with an opacity of anour 70%. Begin at the crown and work down smudging from the hair outwards. You can then increase the opacity and pull a few extra hairs out.

How I would probably tackle it would be on a new layer, use this method and trace over the existing hairs. Then after you're done and happy, go to the layer below and clone away the brownish colour which would also take away the hairs, but you will now have them on the layer above. A bit labour intensive but it would work. (oh when you are cloning out make sure you turn off the layer above so you can see what you're doing.

[MichaelRS]

Okay let me start with this simple statement: YOU ALL ARE AWESOME:):)

I haven't had the time (I really need to quit my job so I can do this full time;)) to do a lot with all of your suggestions but I love what Gary did with Wendy's idea. It's perfect.

It really is obsessive on my part because no one will notice it or look close enough to see or care except for me. Thank you all for feeding my compulsive nature.:D

Michael

[karen donnybrook]

Michael, we are all our own worst critics and need to learn not to be so critical about our own work :D Yes, I am as bad as the next person but Michael (husband) usually brings me back to reality :eek:

[Robyn]

It really is obsessive on my part because no one will notice it or look close enough to see or care except for me.


Michael,

I think we must have been separated at birth! :D

[MichaelRS]

I was born in France Robyn. That's one huge seperation mistake they made!:p

Michael