Removing Background from Layer

[melissat51895761]

Hi, I am accessing a previous employee's files. She created a color layer over an image with decreased opacity to give it a shaded colored look. However, in the layers section, the background is the image and layer1 is the image plus the color layer. I want to be able to copy the color layer so I can put it over a different image but it won't let me select just the color, anytime I copy it, it copies the image with it. I don't know how to isolate the color layer and am confused why the layer includes the image to begin with. I don't know how to unmerge them as all I need from it is the exact color and opacity that she used.

[macpawel]

It's not easy to unmerge object and background. Probably you have to use any selection tool to select image and then move it to destination image.

To do it, try tu use Quick Selection Tool (W) and try to select main image. You can adjust size of this tool using [ or ] brackets.

If you need to decrease selection you can "draw" with Alt key pressed. Finally you can use Select & Mask (or RefineEdge in previous version of PS) to adjust selection - it  really works!

Finally just drag your image to destination document or just copy and paste it in any destitanion place

Pawel

[melissat51895761]

What I need to select and move is not the image, it's just the semi-transparent color over the image. I can't select anything, it will just move the background image with the color mask over it together but won't let me select anything individually. I tried Select and Mask and it didn't do anything. I copied and pasted it into the document I need but still can't get rid of the background image so that it's just the color left.

[WILDCAT54]

Post a screenshot of the document and layers panel please.

[Norman Sanders]

From your description, it is possible that your file looks like this. If I am correct, notice that, although the opacity of the blue is set at 40%,  its full 100% value is shown in the Layers image. To obtain it and have it appear as the Foreground Color, choose the Eyedropper tool, click and drag from your image to the blue in the Layers panel.

[melissat51895761]

[melissat51895761]

I don't know how it changed but the bottom layer was originally the background and was locked. What I want to do is just switch out the image but keep the color overlay. Or copy the overlay over to a different image. But I can't.

[WILDCAT54]

You unlocked the background layer by double clicking on that layer (creating a new layer).

Create a new layer, fill with your orange color and set that layer to multiply

[melissat51895761]

But what if I don't know what the color code is or what the opacity percentage was. It's not my file originally. So I want to replicate just the color from the image but I can't because it's merged with the background image and if I duplicate the layer, it will bring the image along with it. It doesn't look like yours above where the color fill is a layer by itself. So I can't see the properties of it either to grab the settings from there to create a new color fill layer.

[WILDCAT54]

melissat51895761 wrote

if I duplicate the layer, it will bring the image along with it. It doesn't look like yours above where the color fill is a layer by itself. So I can't see the properties of it either to grab the settings from there to create a new color fill layer.

You will have to recreate this image.

Duplicate layer 0 (ctrl+J) then create a new layer and fill that with an orange color and play with the blending modes. Finding the exact color orange that was used will be impossible but you should be able to get pretty close.

[Martin_Bns]

Hi,

If I understood properly, you have an image with a color overlay with a certain % of opacity and you want to replicate the same color and the same % of opacity on another photo.

This is a trial and error process because that overlay could be done in 30 different ways and there is no way to know 100% how it was done.

The first thing you have to do is to find a similar image to the one you have with the color overlay, in terms of color, light and shadows.
The second thing to do is to isolate the color. Here you have to understand that the opacity you see, can be an opacity or a blending mode.

In both cases it's nearly impossible to know which one was used and this means, you can't guess the exact color.

What you CAN do is to try to reverse the situation, by just balancing the white point and do some high end retouching:
So you can go from THIS:

To THIS:

What you have done, is not only balancing the white point but "recording" the overlay colors with reverse engineering process. I know, it can be complicated and it is. It's not a newbie process.

Now if I reverse the Input and the Output, I can get very close to the tone used in the overlay, like this:

So now I have the curve layer for this color and I can throw it on any other image, maybe like this:

I'm not explaining the process step by step because I'm not sure you want to go this way. If yes, just give me a "go" and I'll explain it to you. Be ready for some brain pain 😄

All my best,
Martin Benes

[Norman Sanders]

In looking at the image it is very apparent that this rendition is not a flat color overlay. Rather it is an orange Edit > Fill with the Blending Mode set to Color.  As a quick test, below is is a copy of the Layers panel image with the Orange R239 G125 B43 for starters. Then moved to Lab Color where the L channel adjusted the contrast and range. We would need a copy of the full color background image in order to test further.