Replace Color gives strange results

DH
Posted By
David_Herrig
May 26, 2005
Views
2253
Replies
11
Status
Closed
When I go to change the background color on a jpg file set to RGB mode I am typing in the Red Green and Blue numbers of a set color that I want. But when I ok that change the color that shows up in the result window is not the same and the image itself only shows a variation of Gray.

Any ideas?

D Herrig

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MS
Mark_Sand
May 26, 2005
David,
Can you be more specific about the steps you are taking:

Are you working on a selection, where are you entering the RGB values, what version of PSE, what operating system?
DH
David_Herrig
May 26, 2005
OS is Win XP SP2
PSE 3.0

I have a file that started as a Black on White background tiff bitmap file. Using image mode I changed it to grayscale and then to RGB. I saved the file as a jpg file.

I want to change the background to a straw color and the image to blue.

I went to Enhance/adjust color/Replace color. Using the eyedropper I clicked on the background and then clicked on the result square near the bottom right. I then type in the RGB numbers and click Ok and then ok. The result box shows a completely different color after I click ok on the color picker, and the actual image background goes to a gray.

Dave
MS
Mark_Sand
May 26, 2005
David,
I have a feeling that Replace Color doesn’t work with grayscale, even after it is converted to RGB. However, I have PSE2 and maybe Replace Color works differently than with PSE3.

There are many ways to achieve the results you want. Try this one: On your grayscale-converted-to-RGB pic, add a new layer (click the create new layer icon at bottom of Layers palette). Set the Mode of the new layer to Overlay or Color. Using the Paintbrush tool and the color you want just paint away. You can also select the area and use Edit->Fill with the foreground color, or any of the other coloring methods. I mentioned setting Mode to Overlay or Color. These give slightly different results but probably close to what you want. If the results look too harsh try lowering the opacity of the layer. Also try experimenting with other layer Modes.

You might want to have separate layers for the subject and background, especially if they are to have different opacity values.

Finally, while you are editing your picture it is a good practice to save all your changes as a Photoshop file (.psd suffix) since successive saves to a jpg file results in degredation. When you are finished with your editing then save it a jpg.

Mark
DH
David_Herrig
May 26, 2005
If it doesn’t work why would Adobe put the instructions in the help files?
MS
Mark_Sand
May 27, 2005
David,
Again, the issue here is using Replace Color on a grayscale image. I could not get this to work with PSE2. Does the PSE3 help for Replace Color specifically mention grayscale?
WE
Wendy_E_Williams
May 27, 2005
It doesn’t matter if the mode is grayscale or RGB … what is happening is that Black, White and all shades between cannot be coloured. You can change Black to White … or White to Black but it doesn’t work trying to colour it.

Try it out on a normal RGB image … just add a large black spot and a large white spot and try out Replace colour. Hue and Saturation (the Hue part) doesn’t work on black and white either … well not unless you select colourize). A few other tools work the same way like the replace colour tool (Red eye)

It may be worth experimenting by slightly colouring the image using Hue & Sat>colourize as once you have done that replace colour may indeed work ..

Wendy
DH
David_Herrig
May 27, 2005
I actually get the sme strange results when I try to change the color of a colored object.

Dave
MS
Mark_Sand
May 27, 2005
Is it time to try resetting the preferences?
WE
Wendy_E_Williams
May 27, 2005
I would second that 🙂

Wendy
MS
Mark_Sand
May 27, 2005
David,
Try this to see if your Replace Color is at least working on a "normal" image: Create a new image with white background, and with the Rectangular Marquee Tool draw a rectangle and fill it with any color. Then do the Replace Color. In the dialog box check the Selection button. The image box should show the white rectangle on black background. Move the Hue slider and the rectangle color should change accordingly. If not something is seriously wrong and then you might try resetting the preferences.

Mark
JD
Jorge Driottez
Apr 15, 2013
Wendy it´s right, it´s work when try hue/saturation> enable colorized, but don´t forget to merge down both layers after, if you do not merge you are picking the same B&W layer so you won´t able to change the color after with Enhance>Change color. Cheers

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