5 Ways to Change the Color of Anything in Photoshop

Changing the color of an object using Photoshop is a typical use case for the software, and there are many ways to do it. This 20-minute video from Nathaniel Dodson of tutvid that examines 5 separate ways to re-color or add color to objects.

The first tool you may reach for is the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and the video shows how to use it along with masks to target an object (such as a red dress) and adjust the hue or colorize it.

The second technique examined (at 3:40) is using a color fill layer or the simple paintbrush in combination with the Color and Hue blend modes.

Next, at 6:00, Dodson shows how to colorize a completely white dress. He notes that this technique will work best with a white that is not completely blown out, as some shadow detail is needed to properly map the color tones.

This time he again uses a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, but this time also applies a masked Levels adjustment in order to bring out realistic contrast in the dress. Note that Dodson did not spend too long on the mask for this image – for a real client, you’d want to properly mask out the weeds and perhaps feather the mask a little around the edges.

At 9:20, Dodson shows how to selectively target a color channel with a Hue/Saturation adjustment. This is a great option if you want to change the entire image rather than a specific object, but you only want to adjust certain colors.

Finally, at 12:40 Dodson shows how to change the color of an object to a specific color. There may be a case where you need to match a company’s brand colors precisely or match furniture to a color swatch, and eyeballing just won’t cut it.

This more advanced technique takes advantage of the LAB color readout in the Info panel along with some tweaking across all channels in a Curves adjustment layer in order to precisely match a chair’s color to a color swatch.

(via tutvid via ISO 1200)