Need/Want to change the colour of your car?

Afraid to spend the cash only to hate change? Well sit, open Photoshop & follow our simple step-by-step guide colour changing in Photoshop

Photoshop Tutorial – Colour Changing your car

Hi All,

Here’s a post I put together for the Just Commodores forum back in 2010 – It’s still relevant so I thought I’d share the knowledge. Many, many hours were spent helping people out by rending their cars for free with different wheels, paint, panel, tint etc etc

TIPS/HINTS Before we start:

– It’s very hard (almost impossible depending on the image quality) to make something completely black or white without loosing all detail.

– If you are making a white car a darker colour try using the brightness/contrast tool before changing the colour as white will always be white or a light tinge of the colour you want unless you darken the body of the car.

– When creating several colours always make a new layer because sometimes it can be very hard to replicate the same colour twice….

– Always “SAVE” as you go along…..

1. Start off with the image in Photoshop, then as pictured below create a duplicate layer to cut up

2. Then using the polygonal lasso tool select the outside of the body of the car, in this sort of scenario patience and a steady hand ends up giving you a much better result.

3. Hide the original background layer.

4. Once you’ve gone around the whole car click Select/Inverse which will highlight the background of the image instead of the car itself. Then use the eraser tool to get rid of the background, this will leave you with the body only on that layer. Because you’ve created a 2nd layer you’ll still have the original background on your hidden layer.

5. Now you can go about using the polygonal lasso tool to select headlights, handles, windows, grills etc etc…… Once you’ve selected all those things use the eraser tool to wipe it all away.

6.Now un-hide the original background layer and your image should look as it was when you started. As pictured click on Image / Adjustments / Black & White. This will mean you start off with a fresh batch of colours instead start with an odd colour (I find it helps to get the actual colour you want)

7. The car should not be Black & White but the wheels & background should still be the original colour. Now to get colour click Image / Adjustments / Hue/Saturation.

8. Now the Hue / Saturation should be up, in the bottom ride hand side of the box is should say “colourize” select that option then shift the 3 different options which will change the colour and tones…..

9. Now if you would like to brighten/darken the colour click Image / Adjustments / Brightness & Contrast & then play with the 2 options which can change the darkness or the colour and contrast.

10. Now you should have the colour you want & your done!

Two-toning etc etc would be as simple as creating extra layers & placing them as you want!

Photoshoppers – Let me know if this makes no sense or if I’ve missed some essential pieces?

Regards

Richard