How to match colors when cutting and pasting in parts of another photo

[Grammy]

Hi, I've cut and pasted a couple of faces from one family photo into another (expressions better in different photo). In one of the children, I also pasted in part of the shirt, but the coloring is different from the part of the shirt that was in the original photo. I first tried to clone, but that changed the way the shirt was draping - didn't look right. I erased it. What I really need to do is just change the color in the added shirt to match the color of the original shirt so the two will blend together. I have done a "save as" on the edited image and flattened it so that I can work on the image as a whole new one and not lose the original or layers since they are saved with the original name.

Could someone please help me with this project?
Thanks a bunch,
Terry

[Juergen D]

Go back to the layered image and activate the layer that contains the part of the shirt you trying to paste.
Open a Hue/Sat Adjustment layer above it and group it with the shirt layer below.
Move the sliders (hue and saturation, probably not lightness) around until the colors match.

Juergen

[vawitt]

Hi, Terry. I haven't tried this, but if you have PSE version 6, you might be able to have Elements automatically do the face merge for you...File > New > Photomerge faces. I've heard it does a pretty good job.

~Val in sunny IL

[Diana]

Terry,

I copy and paste to combine parts of photos frequently. And even though the photos were taken at the same time and place, the lighting can be a little different so that the colors in the pasted portion don't quite match the colors in the destination photo.

This has worked pretty well for me.... After pasting, make the layer with the pasted element active, then press Ctrl-L for a layers adjustment. Move the middle slider (midtones) slightly to the left or right until the colors match better. The shadow and highlights sliders can also be moved slightly, if needed, but usually the midtones does it best.

Then a little cloning where the edges meet will usually finish it off. I usually do my cloning on a blank layer above the other layers, with Sample All Layers checked. (Any layers you don't want sampled, just turn off the visibility eye).

Diana

[Grammy]

Thanks so much Jeurgen, Val, and Diana for all your suggestions. When I went back to the photo, I had not saved it in layers, only the flattened version. I thought I had saved both ways. So...I did as Val suggested and tried the photomerge face command. It worked much easier than my cut/paste had for the face and hand. Then, I touched up using the cloning that Diana had suggested. When doing it this way, the colors for the shirt matched the original, so I didn't have to mess with the saturation this time. I'm going to save all three of your replies so that I'll know what to do next time! I really appreciate all the help!
Terry PSE6