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Photo: replace one colour with another (like red eye removal, but with colour picker)


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I use and like the Inpainting Brush a lot to clean up unnecessary details in my pictures. But sometimes I get stuck.

 

In those cases it would be a big help to just be able to replace the colour of a disturbing element with the colour of the background - leaving the texture alone.

 

The Colour Replacement Brush does that to some extent, but it can "only" replace one hue with another, thus not working for white/grey/black.
 

Edit: in some cases dodging or burning the highlights did the trick (learned from the tutorial video 6. Retouching - Enhancing Landscapes/Architecture https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10119-in-house-affinity-photo-video-tutorials )

 

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Examples:

 

1) https://manuschwendener.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/dscf5399_after.jpg   [on the picture: Boy by Ron Mueck]

Solved, see https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10190-photo-replace-one-colour-with-another-like-red-eye-removal-but-with-colour-picker/?p=75380

 

2) https://manuschwendener.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/ersatz-blog.jpg

Solved, see https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10190-photo-replace-one-colour-with-another-like-red-eye-removal-but-with-colour-picker/?p=75440

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  • 3 months later...

Example 3) replace the white colour on the columns with the dark red of the background

 

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Update:

 

By now I found

- view - apple colour picker to pick the colour I want to achieve

- the flood select tool (magic wand icon)

- the flood fill tool

 

But

- if I fill the white colums with the red of the background I lose the texture of the columns

- if I then turn the opacity of the layer down from 100% I get the texture back, but the red becomes too faint

post-5549-0-75031900-1444426851_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

well i see that this is a rather outdated post, but anyway...

 

to edit out some unwanted detail from an image, you could try the clone tool where the inpainting brush fails.

 

about the columns... i'd try duplicating the layer, recolouring the duplicate (recolour adjustment, or maybe the hue slider of the hsl adjustment) and then applying a mask that hides everything else.

even changing the blending mode of the new layer could help.

take care,

stefano

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 I had a go on the  first picture. (Very quick and sloppy)

On the lightsource I used the cloning stamp. 

 

On  the dark lines I use the paintbrush and sampled colour close to the lines.
 

 I selected  the yellow parts refined the selection, used a gradient with two shades of gey. And cloned the edges. (here I stopped, it's to much work just to give an example. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

post-14034-0-10661100-1451216859_thumb.png

- Affinity Photo 2.3.0
- Affinity Designer 2.3.0
-Affinity Publisher 2.3.0

 

MacBook Pro 16 GB
MacOS Sonoma 14.1.2

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On the fence I used the inpaining brush, and then I used the clonong stamp set the hardness to zero, and sampled in different areas. used quite a big brush and painted in big circles.  I didn't finish it. ;)

 

 

 

 

post-14034-0-55169100-1451217429_thumb.png

- Affinity Photo 2.3.0
- Affinity Designer 2.3.0
-Affinity Publisher 2.3.0

 

MacBook Pro 16 GB
MacOS Sonoma 14.1.2

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On the colums I selected the white and filled it with the red colour sampled with the eyedropper.

I set the blend mode to linear light. That changed the colour, so I used the recolour adjustment layer and altered the colour.
It didn't match exactly, so I used a brightness and contrast adjustment layer, and changed the brightness until it matched.

The adjustments layers are clipped to the selection.

 

I used a texture brush to paint in some more highlights (with a lighter shade of the red)

post-14034-0-17477900-1451234223_thumb.png

- Affinity Photo 2.3.0
- Affinity Designer 2.3.0
-Affinity Publisher 2.3.0

 

MacBook Pro 16 GB
MacOS Sonoma 14.1.2

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i tried editing dscf5399_after.jpg and discovered that my workflow is very close to madame's, and the result also is very close.
i can only add a detail: after the first inpainting step, i used the inpainting brush repeatedly where artifacts were visible, and this reduced significantly the need of subsequent cloning. well, i had to use the clone tool anyway here and there.
 
on the column, i sampled the red colour, created a fill layer with that colour, masked it and blended in linear light mode. again, it looks like madam and i took the same steps.
from this point on, i followed a slightly different approach: i duplicated the the fill layer and its mask, added some contrast to the duplicate layer and blended it in reflect mode, setting the opacity to about 90%.

 

the resulting images are attached.

 

now, i am triying to figure out how to add a traslucent effect to the column, but i couldn't achieve any good result so far.

post-22319-0-95599800-1451249682_thumb.jpg

post-22319-0-10991400-1451249711_thumb.jpg

take care,

stefano

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Here is my attempt at the coloring of the columns.

I confess that I still think in terms of "how would I do this in Photoshop" and try to emulate my methods in Affinity Photo ;)

Also, I haven't spent much time selecting the columns correctly, with a nice antialiasing. I still miss the simple way of working with channels and turning them into selections, that I'm used to in Photoshop.
So, after roughly selecting the columns I did the following:

 

Duplicated the columns twice.

Filled the columns area with the color I wanted (in a different layer, of course) and attached a HSL adjustment to allow me to manipulate the flat color just by itself.

 

On one of the original columns duplicate, I attached a Curves adjustment and burned all the shadows, leaving just the highlights, with a smooth enough curve.

Then I added a Black & White adjustment to remove all the color influences (I just need the highlights information).

Then I placed it all inside a group, set the transfer mode to Screen and lowered the opacity.
This added the required highlights to the flat color.

 

On the other original columns duplicate, I attached a Curves adjustment and dodged all the highlights, leaving just the shadows, with a smooth enough curve.

Then I added a Black & White adjustment to remove all the color influences (I just need the shadows information).

Then I placed it all inside a group, set the transfer mode to Multiply and adjusted the opacity.
This added the required shadows to the flat color.

 

This is the method I usually use. So, I can control the color, the shadows and the highlights independently.

 

I include the .afphoto file for you guys to check it out.
Tell me what you think and please, forgive the crappy selection (it made for a nasty outlined glow around the columns).

 

Rui Batista

 

Columns.jpg

Columns.afphoto

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rui,

 

i walked straight in your footsteps, then i took a slightly different approach.

 

first, i selected the columns (without worrying too much about the selection's harshness... ah, holy laziness) and obtained a new layer with mask. experimenting with curves, as you suggested, i understood that it was useful to bring out the surface's textures. i also noticed that an extreme curve setting introduced some color cast, hence the b/w adjustment.

then, i copied the columns layer and painted them with a cloned color, and experimented some different blend modes. overlay and hard light seemed to work, and overlay looked better.

no news for you until now, i think.

 

while the column on the left looked good, here i realized that the column on the right is overexposed, and has no texture at all on its right side. so i used the inpainting brush and some cloning from its left side to the right side, to create some texture.

 

finally, i applied a little cloning from the left column to the right one, and i think that the result is acceptable. in a word, i'd say that your way of retouching is professional, while mine is a bit tricky...

 

unfortunately i cannot upload my aphoto file, since its size jumped up to 71mb and the forum interface does not accept it. at least, i can upload the exported jpg.

post-22319-0-92182300-1451302521_thumb.jpg

take care,

stefano

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You are absolutely right, barninga.

Of course I did a "single solution for all" ;)

When the several elements are not all balanced (some may be more overexposed or underexposed than others), I treat them separately and may add some tweaks to specific elements.

My file was just to show the technique of separating the color, highlights and shadows to control everything more easily.

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what i did with this photograph, was to inpaint the fence at first. it was erased, but the background that was created in place did not integrate nicely with the real background. so, i inpainted the artifacts (basically the colour incoherences that indicated where the borders of the fence were originally). this led to a godd result, that i tried to make better by cloning here and there from the background (hardness = 0; opacity = 100%).

 

when doing the first inpainting step, i got close to the meerkat on the left, but did not touch its back. to get rid of the small portion of fence that i left behind this way, i cloned (same settings as above) from the meerkat's back itself, setting the origin point a bit above the area i wanted to clone out.

 

same strategy for the fence on the right of the meerkat.

 

since the fence is very dark, i fear that the color substitution brush would not be effective, due what you explained me about hue in black and white...

take care,

stefano

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'Boy' is finished and replaced, thank you all for your help (http://manuschwendener.ch/2015/07/10/aarhus-aros-art-museum, last picture).

 

> hide the bright light source close to his left eye

selection and refine selection (tutorial videos), clone tool with opacity lower than 100%

 

> replace the yellowish parts of the ceiling with the cooler colour next to it

selection, sponge brush to desaturate

 

> replace the dark lines above his arms with the colour of the ceiling

clone tool

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