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I am a complete newbie when it comes to Photoshop, so thank you for any help!!

What I am trying to do is to modify the colors of one picture using the colors of another. Picture A is the one I'm trying to modify, Picture B is the one I'm using to select the colors that I want.

This is what I've tried...

  1. Opened both pictures in Photoshop.
  2. Select Picture B
  3. Select the "Select/Color Range" from the menu
  4. Click on the "Image" button on the bottom of the window.
  5. Click on the color I'm trying to select
  6. Select Picture A and click on the Image button.
  7. Select the "Image/Adjustments/Replace Color" from the menu
  8. When I select the color I want to replace, the palette reverts to the color I just selected and there is no way to select the other photo.

The colors don't have to be precise, a close approximation is good.

Any help would be appreciated!!

Gary

Picture A

Picture B

| improve this question | |
  • Hi and welcome to GDSE. It's hard to tell if the method you are using is the best in your case. It would be nice to see those two images. One thing I can say is that you should use "Select > Color Range" in the target image (A) to select the areas to change - not in the source image (B) to select the color. – Wolff Jan 9 at 17:59
  • Thanks for the reply. I have added the two images. – Gary Jan 9 at 18:06
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    Is the topmost image the one you want to change? Because it's a vector image converted to raster (pixel) graphics. If you could get your hands on the vector version (svg, ai, eps, pdf) it would be a lot easier to change the colors in Illustrator. – Wolff Jan 9 at 18:07
  • The topmost image is the one I want to change. I'm not sure I can get my hands on the vector version. – Gary Jan 9 at 18:11
  • Maybe someone else will provide some tricks, but the problem is that the brown colors are very similar and the image has anti-aliasing and compression artifacts. If you zoom in you will see that the colored areas consists of pixels in many slightly different colors. If you select one of the brown nuances you also select pixels here and there in the wheels and the contours. So you can make a quick and dirty sketch, but I doubt that you will ever get a really good result. – Wolff Jan 9 at 18:32
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Image A is the one you want to recolor and image B contains the colors you want to use.

Open both images and repeat the following steps for each color you want to replace:

  • Switch to image B.
  • Select the Eyedropper Tool and click on the color you want to use.
  • Switch to image A.
  • Enter Select > Color Range.
  • Click on the color you want to replace in the image (click in the opened image in the background, not the tiny preview in the dialogue box). The tiny preview shows in white on black background which areas you have selected. Optionally fine-tune the result using the Fuzziness slider.
  • Press OK to create a selection. Now you should see marching ants indicating the selection.
  • Press Alt + Backspace to fill the selected area with the color you picked from the other image.
  • Press Ctrl / Cmd + D to deselect.

Beware that this is a quick and dirty way to recolor an image. You will probably end up coloring parts of the image you didn't want to color. Think about the order of the colors. There is a risk that you during the process color two different areas with the same color, making it impossible to separate the colors later.

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  • Do I have to switch the tool between images? When I press Alt + Backspace nothing happens – Gary Jan 9 at 21:12
  • It should be the shortcut for "Fill with foreground color". Can't say why it's not working for you. Try Edit > Fill (Shift + F5) and then choose Foreground Color and press OK. – Wolff Jan 9 at 21:16

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