February Technique Challenge - Selective Recoloring

Welcome to this month's Technique Challenge.

The Challenge Forums and Galleries are hopping around here with the Super Gallery Bowl Challenges going on right now, so I appreciate you tearing yourselves away from all that fun to come check out my little challenge this month!

This month I'd like to show you how to selectively recolor elements or papers. It's pretty easy and can really help you customize your layouts and breathe new life into your digital supplies.

Selective recoloring is when you change one color in an element or paper, rather than adjusting all the colors at the same time. In my example, I want to change the pinks to blue. Here's how I did it:

1. Drag your element onto your layout.

2. Go to Image>Adjustments> Hue/Saturation (PC: Ctrl + U; Mac: Cmd + U)

3. Click on the Edit drop down box and select the color that you want to change. In my case, I wanted to change the pink to blue, so I clicked on Reds. When I moved the sliders, it effected the red hues.

In my image, it not only turned the pink words blue, but turned the yellow words pink, which I did not want. I decided to change them to white, so I brought up the Image Adjustment dialog box again and selected the Reds again from the Edit box. I moved the Lightness slider all the way to the right, which changed those words to white. Of course, if I wanted a color other than white, I would just repeat steps 2 and 3.

And there you have it. Easy peasy!

For PSE Users:There is a slight difference: Instead of Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation, it is Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Hue/Saturation. Then click on the fly-out menu with the word "Master" instead of "Edit."
Special thanks to Liz for providing the PSE instructions!

So...your challenge this month is to change one color of an element or paper and use it on your layout. Post your layout in the Technique Challenge Gallery and link us up to it in this thread, along with a picture of the ORIGINAL element so we can marvel at your skills!

And of course, everyone that plays along will have their name entered into a drawing for a $5 DHD Gift Certificate!

I can't wait to see your layouts!

Here's my entry:
http://www.designhousedigital.com/galle ... -time.html

Question...if we recolor just part of an element, but we don't use this exact technique to do it, does it still count? Or do we need to do it this way? I'm totally game for doing this technique, if fact, I tried it on the layout I'm currently working on. But, I couldn't get the look I was going for and I got impatient, so I did it the way I know how. I'm totally willing to try this again on a different layout. The month is young.

I adjusted the color of the "Hey Buddy" strip. Thank you for the challenge!

http://www.designhousedigital.com/gallery/technique-challenge/p16011-four-weeks.html

Wendy, the idea of the technique is to only change the color of PART of the paper or element. For example, take this gorgeous paper by Karen Funk:



If I try to change the flowers to purple using Image Adjustment>Hue/Saturation and just click the Colorize box, it changes all the colors to purple:



However, using the technique I outlined above, I can change ONLY the orange flowers:



So. That being said. If you have a different way of doing it, but get the same result of only changing one color at a time, then do it the way you know how to. And, if you want to share your way of doing it, that would be great too!

The goal here is to possibly learn something new to advance your skills and optimize your supplies!

I love re-coloring elements! I liked Gen's No Tricks Just Treats alpha, but the color was a little light. I wanted to leave the white border on the alpha and just brighten the green a bit. In this case, I did the re-color by adding a layer above the alpha, creating a box with the marquee tool (slightly bigger than the alpha, and filling the box with the neon green I wanted for the color. I did ctl g/cmd g to clip the color layer to the alpha, then changed the blending mode to color burn. Thanks for the great challenge, Jen!

http://www.designhousedigital.com/gallery/decorator-gallery/p16337-reindeer-food.html

Here's mine:
http://www.designhousedigital.com/galle ... badge.html

I used your technique: enhance, adjust color, adjust hue/saturation, and then I chose a group. The first I chose was magentas to change the pink to the khaki color; then I chose reds to change the orange to brown.
Here's the original element:

Thanks for sharing your technique, Liz!

[quote="lizziej"
I used your technique: enhance, adjust color, adjust hue/saturation, and then I chose a group. The first I chose was magentas to change the pink to the khaki color; then I chose reds to change the orange to brown.[/quote]

Awesome, Lizzie! I'm so glad it worked for you!

I didn't set out to combine two challenges with this layout, it just happened. I selectively recoloured the flowered paper behind the photo. The pink flowers were originally a yellowy-orange and the white ones were aqua. I had to use two different methods to accomplish this: the one Jen described for the aqua ones and the paint-bucket fill for the pink ones.