Color Swapping 3

Here is an example of color swapping working a little better.  Again, sampling some grapes, I was able to turn a red couch into a color purple that is closer to the grapes that I used.

I used a different little trick with this photo.  I was a little worried about the straight edges because my brush tends to spill over the edges.  Under the limits, I changed it from "Contiguous" to "Find Edges"  and it seemed to detect the edges itself and not spill so much.  

Color Swapping Part 2

Here was another attempt at color swapping which I tried on model Eva Pigford.  I assumed that because her hair color was not white that I'd be able to color over it.  I used a chocolate chip color, thinking I could turn it into a rich brown color and while I was slightly disappointed at the outcome I was pleasantly surprised at how regal it made her look once I was finished - giving her an older look.

This is the original photo of her.

Here is her photo after using the chocolate chip color.  Remarkable isn't it!!  But after I had already finished I saw that I accidentally smudged some of this "gray" color on her face and was a little a little upset because this is something I'd normally just "undo" but remembering the healing brush tool I was able to fix this in seconds.

Here is Eva without the smudge. 

Here is the color that was sampled to get this color for Eva's new hairstyle.  If you think it may be possible that I sampled some of the reflected parts, you'll be surprised to know that I actually selected one of the darkest areas on the chip featured below.  

Color Swapping

Color Swapping is something similar to what I have done in previous posts however I've done some more  work with it.  One thing that I have noticed is that when painting over white or other light colors, the chosen colors do not come out the same but rather many hues lighter.  It's very difficult to understand which colors to use to achieve the exact look that I wanted.

Here is an example of what I started with.

After applying the color swapping technique I was able to change the couch to the color show below.  

Oddly enough, I sampled this color from a photo of some grapes and you will see as mentioned above, this was NOT the hue that I was going for.  

Not what you expected was it?

The one thing that I really appreciate about this technique is that it does not color over highlighting or reflections!

Selecting Objects

Here is another example of selecting objects within a photo.  The difference here is I was able to select TWO completely different objects.  This can be accomplished by using the polygonal lasso and then hitting "shift" to then select the elliptical marquee tool.  By hitting shift in between objects, you can choose more than one object in a photo.

Here is how it looked after.

Selecting Geometric Shapes

One thing I find very interesting is the ability select different parts of the photo and just change those.  Here in this photo, I was able to select the street sign and then invert my selection to choose the area around it to change.  My goal below was to ensure the that sign kept its color and the background changed.  As an example, I started out with the following photo and decided that I'd like to have everything in the photo to be black and white and to keep the sign in brilliant color.

Here is the photo that I began with.

Here is the same photo with the addition of a curves layer to alter the contrast.

Here is another one using different curves.

More Wrinkle Removal

This time I decided to try something that needed more extensive work.

Before

and

Wrinkles Be Gone!!!

Who doesn't want to look younger???  Furthermore, why pay to have photos re-touched when you can do it yourself.  I used the spot healing tool option to help me to achieve this amazing touch-up!!!

While this guy looks great, why not shave some years off of his life!  The one important lesson that I learned was to do different sections on different layers.  In other words, ordinarily, I would be using one layer to do all of my related corrections but since we cannot use the opacity while we are working and instead need to apply it to the entire layer.  This was key to keep in mind.

Here is the same gentleman minus the smile lines.

Want to apply some of the previous features back into the photo to make him look a little more natural?    You can do this per layer.

Notice how I brought a tad few more crows feet back in around the eyes.  (Just a tad).