Colour Replacement?

[Richard S.]

Hi,

I had an image consisting of 2 layers - a layer of white handwritten text, and a black background layer.

Somewhere along the line I accidentally flattened the image and lost my original. I now need to extract just the white text.

Can someone advise me how to either get just the white text onto a new layer, OR, change the black background into specific RGB values. I can't just type the text onto a new layer as it is handmade text, and not a font.

I have tried to select the handwritten text and put it onto a new layer, but the text appears very jagged and is unusable.

Any help appreciated.

Thank you.

[smadell]

The fact that this is black and white makes it a lot simpler. Here's the steps I would take (see picture below, also)

1) Invert the image - now text is black on white

2) Erase White Paper (from the Filters menu) - now text is black on a transparent background

3) Invert again - now text is white on a transparent background

4) Put a Black layer below the text

[lepr]

23 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

I had an image consisting of 2 layers - a layer of white handwritten text, and a black background layer.

Somewhere along the line I accidentally flattened the image and lost my original. I now need to extract just the white text.

Can someone advise me how to either get just the white text onto a new layer, OR, change the black background into specific RGB values. I can't just type the text onto a new layer as it is handmade text, and not a font.

Simplest solution is to place the image over a new background layer and set the image's blend mode to Screen.

Alternatively, invert the image so that it becomes black text on a white background then use the Erase White Paper filter to give you black text with a transparent background, so invert again to get white text on a transparent background. (Edit: @smadell beat me to it)

There are other solutions.

Edited November 9, 2020 by anon2

[Richard S.]

Thank you both - I just tried both of your solutions and both worked perfectly.

Thank You!

[smadell]

You're very welcome. I actually like the simplicity and elegance of using the Screen blend mode. The only potential issue is that it doesn't actually isolate the text; it merely blends away the black background. But it certainly is the more "elegant" of the two solutions!