What is the best way to change the color of a shirt? I have selected the shirt with rhe magic wand but am not sure of how the change the color from a pale, washed-out denim to a deep maroon withou losing detail (buttons, creases, collar, etc. Is Image>Adjustments>Replace Color the way to go? Thanks, one and all and hope that 2005 brings Peace and contentment to all.

Can you post the picture?

Replace Color is one method. Another is to use Hue/Saturation. Make sure Colorize is checked and move the Hue Slider until you get the color you want and fine tune with Saturation.

Cheers
Dave

Pale jeans, not a shirt, but what I did here was:

Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Hue +119 Saturation +67 Lightness -74) WITHOUT colorize checked, masked to affect jeans only.

Then sampled new color of jeans and on a new layer with Hue blend mode painted over the contrast stitching (which had turned a fetching shade of green in this example). If there wasn't any contrast stitching then you could skip this layer.

Then on a new layer with Color blend mode filled the jeans selection with the sampled new color and lowered the opacity of the layer to 60% (this reduces the muddiness of the shadows, but if you do it at 100% (which I think is logically much the same as having used Colorize on the original Hue/Saturation layer) then it all looks a bit too uniform and artificial). Thinking again I might even take the opacity of this layer down below 60%. It will depend on the shadows in your particular image.

Thanks, guys and gals. I will go the Hue/Saturation routine as I really don't understand the Replace Color scenario. Boy, it sure would be nice if Photoshop ever came out with a manual that used less words and more examples. If it wasn't for people like you with your excellent tutorials, Photoshop would be one more of life's mysteries. Here is the original photo.

Nice work Leah...

I would however avoid using hue/saturation at all in this situation...I just created a solid fill layer that was a nice deep shade of maroon, set the blend mode to "Vivid Light", filled the mask with black, and painted the shirt back in with a white brush. I have found that vivid light works very well for changing the color of clothing without losing the texture, I use it quite often when colorizing too.

Michael

Check out the Using Replace Color (http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=56) tutorial on this web site!

Thanks for the steer to the great tutorial, T Paul. MB, I really think that Vivid Light is the way to go. Thanks again

I have found that vivid light works very well for changing the color of clothing without losing the texture, I use it quite often when colorizing too.

Michael

I haven't tried vivid light for colorizing...guess I will have to check that out. Thanks for the new tip!

~T

I tried the Vivid Light tip and what I'm finding is that it completly changes the color I originally picked. Personally I've had much more success using Multiply as it doesn't seem to change the basic "tonality" of the chosen color. Then I just change the opacity to suit. But it's really what works for each individual member.

On the original pic posted here, I find neither Hue/Saturation nor Replace Color worked particularly well. There needs to be good "middle" tones for either to work properly. That's why working with a color layer and blending as Michael suggested works better, at least for this pic.

Cheers
Dave

Thanks Duv,

Vivid light does not work on bright colors very well, nice bright rich colors have enough information to use Hue/Saturation or Selective Color. I've never played much with replace color, but I've never really been able to get a good selection with it, or with color range either.

Speaking of Hue/Saturation, I use it fairly often on only one part of the color spectrum. For example, I've been doing something for the last three or four months. I found this great shirt and tie set that were an almost perfect magenta when photographed, so I wore it for my staff photo for our campus's online directory. I've been going in and using Hue/Saturation to change the color of my shirt about once a week just to see how long it takes for someone to notice it. (Hey, WebMasters need fun too.) I wish I could find shirts in some of these colors, especially the green one on the right.

Take care,

Michael

And how astute was everyone?

Dave

So far, only one person has noticed.