Re-colouring Parts In Photoshop

Sometimes I plan a photograph and realise I either don't have the right parts in the right colour or said parts are not on the market in the right colours. It is at this point that I turn to photoshop and see what I can do...

Captain Fordo Leading His Men...

The Work Flow

I feel as though it is an opportunity wasted sometimes, I edit these works and receive multiple messages asking me where I got said part. Only to have to tell the person that it does not exist. The above Captain Fordo work was a good example of this, I took one of the latest Lego Commander helmets and changed the yellow to red in Photoshop. Resulting in what I think is a pretty cool looking Captain Fordo. I have since upgraded most of my Clone Trooper helmets to Clone Army Customs, greater variety and better sense of consistency.

It is quite an easy thing to do, provided that the area you want to adjust is relatively in focus and already a colour. It is a bit more complicated when working with blacks, whites and greys. The work flow...

• First up I duplicate the working layer, this will be the new coloured part on a separate layer so you can name it as such.

• Between these layers I like to add what I call a rub guide. Which is a solid fill layer, covering the whole screen. I usually make this a light pastel orange or red, it will make it much easier to cut out your area and see where you have been.

• Cutting out. With the layers ready, cut around the area you wish to adjust. So for me with the above image. I was drawing around anything yellow, to then turn red. This will take practice and time to get good at, use a mixture of the hard and soft edge with the eraser tool.

• Once you are happy that you have separated the element you are working with. You can head to Image - Adjust - Hue and Saturation, it's important to only adjust this one layer and not the whole image. Along with the Hue and Saturation you can always adjust the Brightness and Contrast to get where you need to be. That is pretty much all there is to it.

  
  

Luthan In a Custom Overcoat...

This work of Luthan on Ferrix has a colour adjustment, the trench coat was a light tan colour. I really wanted it to be a bit more accurate and to match the minifigure itself. So after a lot of work cleaning up the fray on the cloth (it can't be helped, unless cut with a hot knife). I took my time to cut around the whole thing and recolour it. It is one of those techniques you can use that completely changes the feel of a photograph, really ties it all together. Hope this was a help and I am always up for talking editing over on Instagram. May the force be with you...