Recolor a gray into a color

[DavidM27]

Hello I tried to use the recolor brush to recolor a part of a picture in Affinity Photo. This part is a light gray color and I cant find a way to make it work. 

Here are the step I've used : 

1- Open my picture

2- Duplicated the Background layer (which contains the picture)

3- Choose the Color replacement brush

4- Choose the color I want

5- Try to paint over the duplicated picture

 

But It does not works... it does not recolor anything. But the red area I do have close to my grey area can be recolored... What am I doing wrong ? 

Here is the part where I want to recolor the light grey : 

But I can only recolor the red part : 

Edited March 9, 2022 by DavidM27
Missing software used

[Old Bruce]

5 minutes ago, DavidM27 said:

Hello I tried to use the recolor brush to recolor a part of a picture. This part is a light gray color and I cant find a way to make it work. 

We need to have some colour in order for this to work. Grey from white to black has no colour to recolour. You will most likely be better served using a recolour adjustment layer and mask out the areas you don't want coloured.

[DavidM27]

Ok ! What could I do to recolor this part properly ? (I'm totally new to Affinity photo, and any other photo software) 

Is there any tutorial or guide you can advise me to use ? 

[AffinityJules]

Lots of ways to do this, one being the HSL Adjustment targetting the red (or any colour you wish).

Once the colour has been chosen, move the slider to change the colour.

[Old Bruce]

2 minutes ago, AffinityJules said:

Lots of ways to do this, one being the HSL Adjustment targetting the red (or any colour you wish).

 

Yes, but @DavidM27 wants to change the colour of the grey. HSL adjustment will not/can not do that.

[DavidM27]

@AffinityJules would it work for the light grey next to it too ? 

[AffinityJules]

I think I misunderstood your goal. If you need to recolour the entire picture then the advice mentioned above by Old Bruce using the recolour might be a good option.

[DavidM27]

@AffinityJules My goal is to replace the light grey color by some other color and keep the red color. I do have multiple place where I want the grey to be replace by another color. 

Here are all the area I do have : 

[DavidM27]

By the way I don't know how to use the adjustement recolor layer (I don't even know what it is I don't see that in all the tools...)

[Old Bruce]

Make a new pixel layer and just use the regular brush and regular colour. Use a Blend Mode of Colour for that layer.

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, DavidM27 said:

By the way I don't know how to use the adjustement recolor layer (I don't even know what it is I don't see that in all the tools...)

It is a tool only in the broader definition of the word tool. It is an Adjustment Layer go to View > Studio > Adjustments. Or click on the little icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel (this is my preferred method of working).

 

[AffinityJules]

10 minutes ago, DavidM27 said:

"By

the way I don't know how to use the adjustement recolor layer (I don't even know what it is I don't see that in all the too

There are two places to find the recolour adjustment. (See picture)

[DavidM27]

Thank it did worked ! I am having issues making it look right but it does the job in some ways : 

[NotMyFault]

41 minutes ago, DavidM27 said:

@AffinityJules would it work for the light grey next to it too ? 

The question is how do you intend to deal with lightness values. The “light grey” area has different shades of gray

• do you want to achieve one specific HSL / RGB color no matter of what the old gray value was before?, e.g HSL 120/100/50
• Do you want to use the old grey value to set the brightness of new color? E.g. HSL 120/100/<old. Grey val>

depending on you choice, different methods can/must be used.

[AffinityJules]

2 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

The question is how do you intend to deal with lightness values. The “light grey” area has different shades of gray

• do you want to achieve one specific HSL / RGB color no matter of what the old gray value was before?, e.g HSL 120/100/50
• Do you want to use the old grey value to set the brightness of new color? E.g. HSL 120/100/<old. Grey val>

depending on you choice, different methods can/must be used.

I will defer to all those who know way more about it than I do. 😉

[DavidM27]

@NotMyFault In a perfect  world I would love to be able to replace the grey of those area by any other color keeping the shading (to keep it kind of real instead of that flat black color) And in another layer I would be able to change the red next to it as well... 

To explain what I'm doing : it is stickers on a motorbike and I would like to have a look of different color in order to choose what I like the most... 

 

[DavidM27]

Here is where I am now... I do have the two layer but the border is terrible... And the color is fully flat : 

[NotMyFault]

I would recommend a fill layer, blend mode color, and a mask.

This allows to change the fill color live, and use the grey shades to keep the original lightness levels.

PS: you may get better masking using pen tool to create the outline, fill with white, and set a small radius gaussion blur by layer fx. The images are quite low res, hope you have better high res images at hand.

recolor badge.afphoto

[DavidM27]

Wow that looks way better than what I did ! Can you explain what are the step you made to get there ? 

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, DavidM27 said:

Wow that looks way better than what I did ! Can you explain what are the step you made to get there ? 

Sure. 

1. Use the Selection Brush and click on the white area, drag until selection is how you want it.
2. Add a fill layer. It automatically uses the selection as mask.
3. set the fill color in the color panel.
4. change the blend mode of the fill layer to "color".

You know can change the color of the fill layer again and see the result immediately.

PS: Caution: the fill layer must be select in the layer stack, and the move tool (hand symbol) should be active. If e.g. the brush tool is active, you can't change the fill color.

[blacknight]