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jason dewey Calculating status...

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change color of ONE red tree surounded by green

Oct 8, 2011 12:30 PM

CS5 geniuses -

I need to learn how to change the color of selective trees/shrubs etc that are surrounded by a forest of green - hopefully WITHOUT masking/brushing the tree, which would take forever. I am comfortable desaturating/eliminating the red cast in this case, using an HSL layer, but what about additive or replacement color to make it green? Or a channel mixer method? Attached is a cropped section of the original image and a second screenshot with color desaturated - but how would I then add green back into it without affecting surrounding green? This is a request I get occassionaly from a landscape architect client, who wants to change the color of trees (that their clients plant and are not part of the desired plan).

Is there an existing tutorial or forum discussion that someone can point me towards? Many thanks!

Jason Dewey

531 Views 4 Replies Latest reply: DujourJ, Oct 13, 2011 1:09 AM

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1. MTSTUNER,

Oct 8, 2011 2:07 PM in reply to jason dewey

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One way would be to use color range for the intial selection, then copy the selection to a new layer.
Desaturate the layer, add a color fill layer and levels/curves adjustment layer and clip those layers to desaturated layer.
Pick a color (color fill layer) and change the blending mode to overlay, softlight or color.
Use the levels/curves to adjust the tone and add a layer mask to the desaturated layer for clean up.
I used kinda of a bright green so you could clearly see the effect.

MTSTUNER

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2. c.pfaffenbichler,

Oct 9, 2011 7:23 AM in reply to jason dewey

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Another option needing only a very rough Layer Mask might be to use a Hue/Adjustments Layer set to Red and a masked Channel Mixer Layer to level the green channel.

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3. jason dewey,

Oct 9, 2011 9:33 AM in reply to jason dewey

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many thanks to you both, super helpful!

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4. DujourJ,

Oct 13, 2011 1:09 AM in reply to jason dewey

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Or even better, use Gradient Map down in the menus at the bottom of the layer box. You'll get something ugly with weird colors automatically. Don't panic, and click on the gradient that is somewhere in your windows, probably near your swatches. Then you'll be able to change the colors in it.

The left side of the bar is the dark tones of your image. So click on that color swatch and go pick the darker, blueish green you can find in the leaves of the green trees. Then on the right side, change the color for the yellow you can see in the brighter leaves. In the middle, put an average green that nears the general green of the image. Adjust the amount of every one you want from black to white, and then apply.

Blend it with Color or Overlay modes. Then, since it's by default applied all over the picture, create a mask for it. Put it all black to begin with, and quite roughly, with a big brush, white out the general shape of the tree in that mask. The tree should turn as green as every other one around.

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