Guide for changing portrait color

From A Reyvateil's Wiki

This is Palsa's guide for changing portrait color, which he wrote in reply to a question by Wizzard on the forum

Original forum post, here.

Introduction

First, understand that I don't have Photo Shop and I hardly use GIMP, but those graphics editors should have the same or at least similar tools to the ones that I use.

Also, the method may vary slightly depending on the picture used. Before you start, make sure that your graphics editor supports layer images, and that the layer toolbar is active.

The layer doesn't have to be in vector format, since this method will convert the layer to raster anyway.

I don't have a lot of time today, so I'll just do a quick hair color edit.

Preparation

This is the picture I will be using:

Ok, for starters, let me explain a few important things about the Selection Tools.

Most graphics editors have at least 3 selection tools.

Selection Shape - Such as squares, rectangles, circles, etc.

Freehand Selection - This allows you to select a given area by either point and click or simply drawing.

Magic Wand - Click a part of the picture to select a color, hue, brightness, etc.

We will be using the later two.

Freehand Selection - Configuration:
Mode: Will vary.
Selection Type: Point to Point.
Feather: 0.
Smoothing: 0.
Anti-Alias: Yes.

Magic Wand - Configuration:
Mode: Will vary.
Match Mode: Color.
Tolerance: Will vary depending on the colors, usually 5, 10, 15 or 20 will do.
Feather: 0.
Anti-Alias: Yes, set additional option to Outside.
Use All Layers: Yes.
Contiguous: Yes.

You will have to change the 'Mode' option while the work is in progress, I'll explain that later, but for now, just set it to 'Add'.

The 'Mode' option has 3 choices, Replace (standard selection), Add (will a selection segment to an existing selection, without loosing the current selection), Remove (will remove a segment of a selection).

Note, when your finished with your project, don't forget to change this option back to 'Replace'.

Alright, now that our selection tools are configured, we can get started.

Select the hair

Change your selection tool to Magic Wand.

Start out by setting the Tolerance to 10, and clicking the color you intend to change.

If it selects too much, then lower the Tolerance, if not enough, raise the Tolerance, if it selects too much in some places and not enough in others, switch to the Freehand Selection tool.

Did you notice how the selection has gone a little outside of the colored area?

That is what we want, in actuality, the selection is faded around the edges, you will see what I'm talking about later.

As you can see, the Magic Wand tool will not always select the entire group of colors.

For situations such as this, switch to Freehand Selection, make sure that Mode is set to Add, and manually select the given areas.

Actually, I suggest doing that anyway, because the Anti-Alias feature will often leave segments out without your knowing, so make sure that you go around and select all of the light and dark colors manually.

Sometimes a character will have an additional color, or variation, I generally go ahead and select that area along with the rest, and then select it again later on and add it to a separate layer.

So if you encounter this, just select the area along with the main color.

Now here is where we will need the Freehand Selection tool.

Make sure to select inside of the selection when you start and finish, this will add a transition along the outline.

Also make sure that you select in the middle of the outline, but near the outside of the outline when you go around the area that you wish to add.

If you select too far outside of the outline, then you will be including other colors in your selection.

Don't worry too much about that, there is a way of dealing with it that, which I will explain later.

For the segments that are right next to a transparent area, just go ahead and select the transparent portion along with it, since the transparent part will not be altered.

If everything was done correctly, then it should look something like this.

Copy the hair to a new layer

Now we're ready to copy our selection. First create a new Raster Layer.

Choose the original layer that our image is on, and while it is still selected, copy the selection.

(Usually Ctrl+C).

Switch to the new layer, and choose to 'Paste Into Selection'.

(Usually Crtl+Shift+L, alternately Edit>Paste Into Selection.

If your graphics editor doesn't have this feature, then choose to Paste As New Selection. Usually Crtl+E).

Now let's make the original layer invisible so we can take a look at are new 'Hair' layer.

As you can see, it is not without errors, so to fix this, do as follows.

Fixing errors in the hair layer

1. Create a copy of the new 'Hair' layer.

2. Make sure that the 'Original Image' layer is set to visible.

3. Make the 'Hair' layer invisible, so that we can compare 'Original' layer to that of the 'Copied' layer.

4. Change the color of the Copied layer to something bright that stands out.

The sections highlighted in blue are the type of segment that we want to remove.

Switch to the Freehand Selection tool, with 'Mode' set to 'Add' and 'Anti-Alias' set to 'On', and then select the segments that you wish to remove.

Hit the Delete button on your keyboard 'Twice' to clear the selections on the yellow 'Copied' layer. Review the changes, if it looks good, than do the same to the 'Hair' layer.

Now is where we have to add the parts that we missed earlier, because of the Anti-Alias feature.

Make the 'Original Image' layer invisible.

Select in the same manner that we just did, but this time with the parts that we want to add.

Once you've selected everything you wish to add, copy the selection on the 'Original Image' layer, and 'Paste Into Selection' on the yellow 'Copied' layer.

What we want to do is make sure that the transition is in the exact center of the outline.

Recolor the selected areas so that you can tell the difference.

If it looks good, then switch the 'Hair' layers visibility to on, and 'Paste Into Selection'. Delete the blue and yellow 'Copied' layer, it has served its purpose. The 'Hair' layer should now look something like this.

Copy the eyebrows to the hair layer

Now, for the eyebrows.

Select the eyebrows using the Freehand Selection tool, and paste the selection into the Hair layer.

Color the hair layer

The Hair layer is now ready for coloring.

If you want, you can recolor it right now, but I advice making several preparations first.

Create two duplicates of the Hair layer, and set the Hair layer to invisible.

On both of the duplicate layers, set the color to 'Gray', using the 'Colorize' option.

(In Paint Shop Pro, Adjust>Color>Colorize).

Now switch to the lower 'Gray' layer, and reduce the brightness and contrast by 10 or 20.

The lower Gray layer is there to provide a 'just in case' outline for the upper layer.

Now, remember how I said that we were going to deal with the additional hair color?

Select that color using the same methods earlier, but paste it to its own layer, above the Gray layers.

Recolor the 'Additional' hair color layer to Gray, but do not create a duplicate.

Now you can use whatever method you prefer for the recolor.

In Paint Shop Pro, I generally use a tool called 'Manual Color Correction', it is not listed by default, so you would have to add it under the 'Customize' option.

(View>Customize).

Suggestion.

When coloring, set your source color to around R:112, B:112, G:112, or R:128, B:128, G:128, or R:144, B:144, G:144, or R:192, B:192, G:192.

Here is the graphics I used in the example:

http://www.theimghost.com/images/66Yuveria_Color_Edit_2.psd

Additional notes on hair re-coloring

A couple things note.

Much of the time, a dark hair color will have a low contrast, where a light hair color will have a high contrast.

So, if you want to make a dark hair color light, then I suggest increasing the contrast first, or if you want to make a light hair color dark, then you would want to lower the contrast before coloring.

I hope that I wrote that down in a manner that is easy to follow. ]