How Can I Do A Global Color Replace Of Black Text On Grey Background

[Scott_11A]

I am brand new to Affinity Photo and Publisher. I am a true rookie here. Using Photo on Windows desktop, I have an image which has black text and a black graphic on a light grey background. I would like to change everything that is currently colored black (i.e. the text and graphic) from black to a shade of grey that is lighter than full black but darker than the grey in the background. In other words, I want to globally replace everything that is currently black to a different color that I can select myself.

It seems as if this should be a very easy thing to accomplish but I have searched high and low and haven't been able to find a way to do it. I just want to be able to set my new color to replace everything that is currently colored black. For example, I should also be able to change my all of my black (or any other colored objects for that matter) globally to all red, blue, etc. in the same way if I wanted to in the future.

How can I accomplish this without having to go through and having to select and/or paint individual objects? Thanks for any help.

 

[Old Bruce]

Hi and welcome to the forums @Scott_11A,

Some questions:

Is the text actually text? Not a Photograph of text?

If yes then select the text with the text tool then use the colour panel to choose your colour. If no then I need to know if it is separate from the rest of the image.

The black graphic ... again is it separate from the rest of the image? What sort of graphic is it?

You can do a fair amount of changing the black to grey with the levels slider called Output Black Level. But you need to have separate layers or you'll have to make selections.

[Scott_11A]

Thanks for such a prompt response. The text tool that you suggested didn't work, probably because as you suggested, the text is really a photo of text. It was created on MSword then a screenshot was taken of it into a .jpg format. That was then converted to a .png file which is what I am using now.

The text and the graphic are the only objects in the image so I guess that means they are not separate from the rest of the image.

I have uploaded a .jpg of the graphic below. I want to be able to change the black portions of it to a different color.

Also, I would like to be able to relocate the graphic and portions of the text (i.e. move them) to different locations in the image. How would I do that? Thanks again.

 

 

[Scott_11A]

I think I found my problem. It looks as if the color black cannot be replaced with another color in Photo.

[Frances Proctor]

I am still sure of what you are working with one single image?

Or multiple layers?

Can you post a screen shot of your layers panel?

[firstdefence]

3 hours ago, Scott_11A said:

I think I found my problem. It looks as if the color black cannot be replaced with another color in Photo.

Make a selection of the black text and use a recolour adjustment filter, move the Lightness slider to the right; try 30-50% and adjust the Hue to a colour that suits, you can also adjust the saturation slider to affect the amount of colour.

The selection can also be used to make a duplicate of the text that can be repositioned within the image, but as Frances asks, a picture paints a thousand words and we can then see what we are dealing with.

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_floodSelect.html

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Adjustments/adjustment_reclr.html

[Scott_11A]

Thanks for all the help. I've pasted a shot of my layers panel below. The layers are what they looked like at the time of my original post. I realize that it would be helpful if I could show the entire image but it contains personal information regarding my family that I would rather not post on a public forum.

I've been able to solve a major part of my problem and create the effect I want by using the brightness/contrast adjustments however I'm still not able to lighten the black on the graphic the way I would like to. As you can see, I can use the marquee rectangle pointer to select the graphic but when I attempt to lighten the black in the graphic everything within the rectangle (including the grey) lightens as well. That means that the grey within the rectangle now stands out against the shade of grey used against the grey used as background in the rest of the image.

What I would like to do is be able to lighten everything black in that graphic without changing the shade of the grey either  in the background surrounding it. I don't mind if the grey areas inside the graphic change slightly when lightening the black although it would be great if I could keep them unchanged as well.

As far as my original question goes, I may have confused people about what I was trying to ask by using text as an example of what I was trying to change  globally. Basically what I was asking was if I could do a global color change in photo. It could to anything in the image and not just text. Suppose I had an image with multiple cars of the same shade of red in it. I would like to be able to click on the red in one of the cars, re-colorize that car from red to blue for example with the color wheel and have ALL of the red cars in the image turn to blue as well. So far I haven't been able to find a way to do that in Photo.

 

[firstdefence]

Because of the nature of the paint job on cars it's not particularly easy to get a decent selection. As an example for red cars you could try Select > Colour Range  > Reds then add a recolour adjustment, this will create a mask on the recolour adjustment layer and only the selection will be recoloured, you could refine the selection to include or exclude area's and you have to consider colour reflected in windscreens and glass in general.

Also take note of any detailing like chrome, headlights, and anything that shouldn't have colour like trim, as recolour will tint them so they have to be excluded.

Another observation is selection may soft, so the colouration my change but the selection will not be opaque, so less than 100% opacity.

[Old Bruce]

You Cannot change the colour of a neutral grey. There is no colour in the grey or black. Clear one of the RGB Channels using the Channels panel and then the jpg will have some colour you can play with using an HSL Adjustment layer.