Preview Colours in Photoshop

[Taz Rules]

OK, here we go....
the promised tutorial on changing your car's colour in Photoshop.

It looks long and involved, but it really isn't that bad. An hour or so should be lots of time to do this.

Thanks and apologies to CanadianGTM...I used a pic of your car again. It was posted on the forum, and looks great, as well as being one colour. I hope it doesn't bother you that I used it.

This is going to be done over several posts, otherwise it is just too long.

Remember to save your work after every step or two. Redoing stuff really sucks.

[Taz Rules]

1. Open Photoshop. I use Photoshop 6.

2. Open the jpeg image you want to use. In this case, I'm using another photo of CanadianGTM's build (sorry bud, but I love your car!)

The reason I'm using this particular car is that it is a Gen 2, and it is one colour, as opposed to two toned or having stripes. This is important for colour shifts.

The most important thing to note at this time is the location of your "Layers" dialog box on your PS workspace. You will be using this a lot!

PS-Tutorial-1.jpg

3. Note the "lock" beside the highlighted "Background" layer. This means that you can't mess with this layer. In PS 6, when working on a jpeg image, this lock cannot be removed for some reason. So to get around this, we're going to duplicate the layer, and delete the original.

To do this, right-click on the highlighted layer, and select "Duplicate Layer". Click "OK" in the dialog box. Easy Peasy.

Now highlight the locked layer. On the very bottom right of your "Layers" toolbox there is a little trash can. Click it.

Click OK to delete the layer.

PS-Tutorial-2.jpg

If you wish, you can right click on the "Background copy" layer, which is unlocked, and under "Layer Properties", you can change the name to simply "Background" like I have. Or not. Its your option.

4. Before we start to colour shift, I'm going to get rid of the big wing. You will be able to click back and forth to see the car with and without the wing after this is done.

Start by duplicating the Background Layer, just like before. This time, when the dialog box pops up, name it "BG Wingless" or something like that.
PS-Tutorial-3.jpg

[Taz Rules]

5. Duplicate this layer again. Name the third layer "Car Body". The layers should be, from top to bottom, Car Body, BG Wingless, and Background.

6. See the little eyeball beside each layer name in the Toolbox? When that eyeball is visible, the layer is visible. When that eyeball is not visible, the layer is hidden. For now, we are going to hide the "BG Wingless" and "Background" layers, so click on the eyeball beside those two names.

PS-Tutorial-4.jpg

7. Make sure that "Car Body" is selected. Use the Magifying Glass tool to blow up the image on your screen
Now we are going to use the Eraser tool to outline the car body.

PS-Tutorial-5.jpgPS-Tutorial-6.jpg

8. When using the Eraser Tool, there are two things which are important right now.

First, select a brush with a solid edge, not a feathered edge. You can see when you select the brushes which is which. Use the biggest brush you can, and switch to a smaller one for tight inside corners.

Second, use the brush in short strokes. That way, if you make a mistake and have to "undo", you don't lose a whole lot of work. BTW, you can "undo" about 20 steps.

PS-Tutorial-7.jpg

This is the part where you will take the most time. Think of it like bodywork. A little time and effort now yields a much better paint job later, so make sure you get into all the little corners and follow the edges well. Blow up the image quite large on your screen to make the job easier. Remember, short strokes.

You will want to eliminate all things that will not change colour with the paint. That includes wheels, tires, windshield, windows, and all the shadows and background. I've also erased over the wing...Don't worry, it can come back later.

Leave the carbon fiber bits, grills, screens and headlights for later.

PS-Tutorial-8.jpg

[Taz Rules]

9. Now use the Lasso tool to highlight the car's body. There are other tools, like the Magic Wand, which would seem to be easier, but you still need to go in and clean up the edges anyway, so this actually ends up being less work. I like to use the Polygon Lasso tool. You can also use the Freehand Lasso Tool, which is more precise, but it is more time consuming and difficult. To switch between these tools, click on the tool, and a mini dropdown menu appears. Select the tool you want off of that menu.

Using the Polygon Lasso tool, just click on points on the body outline. Keep your points close together on curves, and further apart on straights. You'll get the idea when you do it. When you close the loop, the car body that is inside will be selected.

10. Now go to the top menu, an find "Select". In that drop down, you are going to click on "Inverse Selection" so that everything BUT the car body is now selected. Once you have done that, hit your Delete button on your keyboard.

You may want to save your work every so often.

PS-Tutorial-9.jpgPS-Tutorial-10.jpg

[Taz Rules]

11. OK. Now you're done the hard part...outlining the body. While you are here, go back to "Select", and from the drop down, click "Deselect". Now use the Magic Wand tool, and click on the checked area. This will select the entire blank space, or in other words, everything but the car body.

PS-Tutorial-11.jpg

Next, we're going to eliminate the wing.

Using the eyeballs in the toolbox, hide the "Car Body" layer,and select the "BG Wingless" layer. It should become visible automatically when you select it. Note that the Selection line is still around the body. You want this.


12. We're going to use the "Clone Stamp" tool to eliminate the wing on this layer now.

PS-Tutorial-12.jpg

We do this by selecting the Clone Stamp tool, and then selecting a brush from above. Select a brush with a feathered edge, and one that is a decent size.

Hold the ALT button while clicking on an area in the background, and then click over the wing. Foliage hides a lot, so just "move" it over with the Clone Stamp. If you do the rocks, like I did, then keep clicking over them in a straight line to "fill in" behind the wing. Keep Alt-Clicking on a new area to avoid repetitive patterns.

Now that this is done, you can make the Background layer visible again, and by clicking on the BG Wingless eyeball to reveal/hide that layer, you will notice that the wing appears and disappears.

(Of note, if you want to get creative here, you can insert whatever background photo you want. You just need to select the wheels and window holes and bring them forward, just like you did the car body...its a bit more work, but you can have some fun. I'll make that another tutorial...)

PS-Tutorial-13.jpgPS-Tutorial-14.jpg

[Taz Rules]

13. OK, enough of that fooling around. We're almost there. Now we're going to separate out different elements of the car. Things that don't change colour with the paint, and other things that we may want to look at with different colours.
We're talking here about the grills, meshes and lights, which won't change colour at all. Also, we will separate out layers for the side skirts and splitter, and also for the hood vents, so we can see them in body colour, black, or carbon fiber. Same with the headlight buckets. I also like the look of a two tone roof, so I will select a "roof' layer, too. If you want to add a stripe or a different two tone pattern, just do the same thing for that, too.

Lets start by pulling out the grills, meshes and lights.

Select the layer "Car Body". Right click on it, and choose "Duplicate Layer". Name this layer "Grills"

PS-Tutorial-15.jpg

14. I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but this should make things a bit easier down the road. If you look at the layers, they are starting to pile up. There's a bunch more coming, too. So, to keep them organized, you can colour code them. Right click on each layer, and select "Layer Properties" When the Properties dialog box comes up, under the name you will notice a colour box. I always make my Background layers grey. The car body parts which are "painted" in the file will get various colours...blue for base coats, green for candy layers, and violet for pearl layers. Stuff which won't colour shift, like lights and gas caps, I colour code red.

Also, this would be a good time to "Lock" your backround layers so they don't accidentally get messed up.

Actually, I often lock every layer except the one I want to work on.

PS-Tutorial-16.jpg

15. If you have colour coded your layers like I have, you will notice that when you Duplicate a layer, the colour coding duplicates, as well. So before I start pulling items out, I'm going to Duplicate the Grills layer a few more times. Name one layer "Lights", and one layer "Vents". The reason I have "Vents" and "grills" separate is so you can change the front grill to a mesh if you like, or change its colour to match the body, etc., without affecting the other side and roof meshes. "Lights will only be the bulbs (headlight and fog light), not the bezels. The Buckets will be done on a different layer so they can change colour.

[Taz Rules]

16. Once your layers are duplicated and named, start with the front grill. With the Grills layer selected (and the other layers locked) use the Polygon Lasso tool to outline the front grill. Its a good idea to use the Magnifying Glass to enlarge the area you are working on so you can get the detailed areas.

In this image, I have highlighted along the top where you can set your tool to a) erase your old selection and start over, b) add to your current selection, c) remove from your current selection, or d) select only where your new and old selections intersect. I tend to use setting B, add to current selection, which allows me to outline my item in small sections. If you "go outside the lines", you can always use setting C (remove from selection) to bring the edge back.

Again, when using the Polygon Lasso tool, click your points close together around curves so you get a round look and not a choppy look.

PS-Tutorial-17.jpg

17. Once you have your grill outlined, go to the top menu and click "Select", then "Inverse" from the dropdown. With the selection inverted, press your Delete key on your keyboard. This layer will now have only the grill. To show this, right click on the Grills layer eyeball, and click "Hide other layers". You will be left with this. Lock the Grills layer.

PS-Tutorial-18.jpg

18. We are now going to repeat this process (steps 16 and 17) for the Lights and Vents layers. Select each layer (it will become visible when you select it), outline the lights, or meshes depending on the layer, inverse your selection and delete the rest of the layer.

NOTE...before you start on each layer, remember to clear your old selections, or you will have some issues. Go to Select in the upper menu, and select "Deselect" from the dropdown.

The three layers combined will look like this....

PS-Tutorial-19.jpg

19. Lock off all three of these layers.

20. Now we are going to do the same for the hood vents, splitter and side skirts, headlight buckets, and roof. These are areas that may or may not be painted a different colour than the main body. I'm going to start by duplicating the "Car Body" layer, naming it "Headlight Buckets", then I'm going to Right click on "Headlight Buckets", and under Layer Properties, I'm going to change the colour code to yellow.

21. Next, we're going to Duplicate "Headlight Buckets" a few times, naming the new layers "Splitter", "Hood Vents", and "Roof".

22. Once you have your layers, pick one, lock the other ones off, and do steps 17-18 for each layer, just like you did for Lights, Vents and Grills.

PS-Tutorial-20.jpg

[Taz Rules]

23. Now, we're going to work on the Hood Vents layer to make them Carbon Fiber.

If you want to see the vents in body colour, then hide this layer, and the vents on the "Car Body" layer will show. Then make this layer visible to see the vents in CF.

You can duplicate this layer and change them to a different colour, as well. In fact, I'll do that here. I'll make one layer for CF vents and one layer for blue vents.

24. Select the Hood Vents layer, and duplicate it. Name it Blue Vents. Unlock it and make sure it is selected.

25. In the upper menu, click on "Image", from the drop down, select "Adjust", and from the sub menu, click "Hue/Saturation".

PS-Tutorial-21.jpg

26. Using the slider, adjust the Hue until the vents turn the right shade of blue.

27. Now lock off the Blue Vents layer, and click the eyeball to make it invisible. Select the Hood Vents layer and unlock it.

28. With the Hood Vents layer selected and unlocked, we're going to make it look like Carbon Fiber. Go to the upper menu, select Image: Adjust, and then Desaturate. This will remove the colour from the layer.

Now go back to Image: Adjust, and then click on Color Balance.


I like to simulate the colour of Carbon Fiber by balancing the colour towards Cyan, and then add a bit of green and yellow for that tinge of green. You can experiment to find a colour you like.

PS-Tutorial-22.jpg

Lock off Hood Vents.

[Taz Rules]

29. Now, lets see what we've done. Right click on the Hood Vents eyeball, and select "Show/Hide Other Layers".

Alternate between making Blue Vents visible and invisible, same with Hood Vents. You can click and drag the layers into different orders, as well. The layer order will make a big difference when it comes to "painting" the body, especially with candies.

PS-Tutorial-23.jpg

30. Now we're going to do the same thing with the headlight buckets. I'm going to paint them black by using Image: Adjust: Desaturate, and then Image: Adjust: Brightness/Contrast to darken the buckets.
Then I'm going to do the same for the Roof layer, giving me a two tone.

PS-Tutorial-24.jpg


31. I notice there is some red highlighting in the headlights and vents, so I'm going to go to those layers and either Desaturate them or Color Balance them back to neutral. You can experiment with what works for you.

For the lights, I used Color Balance and fiddled.

For the vent meshes, I selected Image: Adjust: Selective Color. In Selective Color, I selected Reds, and used the sliders to reduce the amount of magenta in that layer. It worked. Again, fiddle and experiment.

PS-Tutorial-25.jpg

[Taz Rules]

32. Now we get to the fun part. Oddly enough, its also the easiest part. Select the Car Body layer and unlock it.

If you are doing a solid colour, just go to Image: Adjust, and experiment with Hue/Saturation, Darkness Contrast, Color Balance, and Selective Color. Keep your original colour and use "Save As" to save the files in different iterations. Using File: Save For Web will save your image in jpeg so anyone can view it.

If you want to see Candies or pearls, then you are going to start by duplicating the Car Body layer a few times. Name the layers Base Coat, Candy 1, Candy 2, and Pearl. Also add one called Stripe or Graphics if you want to add those.

As always, lock them off and make them invisible.

33. I right clicked on Car Body and under Layer Properties, changed the name to Base Coat.

34. With Base Coat selected, and all other Paint layers hidden, I desaturated the base coat. That gives a nice, gunmetal grey. Then I used Brightness/Contrast to lighten it to silver. Silver is a good base coat, but I wanted gold, so I went to Color Balance and shifted it.

PS-Tutorial-26.jpg

35. I'm going to go with a Candy Racing Green here. So I locked off the Base Coat, and went to Candy 1. There I used Image:Adjust: Hue/Saturation to shift the red to green. Notice by removing Lightness on the slider, I made the colour darker.

PS-Tutorial-27.jpg

36. Now, the green is solid. If you look at the top of the Layers toolbox, there is a little box named "Opacity". This is at 100%. To simulate candy, that needs to drop to about 50%. Click on the box and use the slider, or type in a numeric value. Now you see what your green candy looks like over your gold base. Just for giggles, make the base coat invisible, which will show the red base coat from the background images. Quite the colour difference, no?

Make your base coat visible again.

Now, we're going to add another layer of Candy Green at 50% to deepen the colour. Do it exactly the same way you did for Candy 1, just on the Candy 2 layer. Duplicate the candy 2 layer and name it Candy 3. See the colour deepen?

37. Now we're going to add a graphic. Lock off everything but the Graphics layer. Select the Graphics Layer and use the Polygon Lasso tool to draw a stripe or two.

With your striped area highlighted, use Hue/Saturation to reduce the lightness and shift the hue so its black. Or whatever other colour you want.

When that is done, go to the top menu and hit Select:Inverse. Then hit your delete key so all that is left is the stripe.

PS-Tutorial-28.jpg

[Taz Rules]

38. Just as an experiment, grab layers Candy 2 and Candy 3 and drag them up so they are above the Roof layer on the list.

Neat, eh? Its like your graphic is under the candy paints.

PS-Tutorial-29.jpg

39. Now I'm going to add a gold/purple "flip flop" pearl. Grab the Pearl layer, and drag it up above Candy 3.

Unlock it and select it. Make sure everything else is locked down.

40. Now on the Pearl layer, use Hue to shift the red to gold. Keep in mind you can go to the top of the dialog box and adjust specific colour ranges on the drop down, or you can just do the Master layer. I fiddle with both.

PS-Tutorial-30.jpg

41. Go to Image:Adjust: Color Balance, and click the Highlights dot, then adjust colour to a brighter gold
PS-Tutorial-31.jpg

42. Now go back to Color Balance, click the Shadows dot, and adjust colour to a purple

PS-Tutorial-32.jpg

43. Now to give it the Pearl effect, go to the top of the Layers tool box and drop the opacity of the Pearl layer to about 36%. To make the effect more subtle, drag the Pearl layer below the Candy 3 layer.

PS-Tutorial-33.jpg

[Taz Rules]

Here you go...Pearls and Candies.

See what the car looks like with the black roof, the body colour roof, black headlights, body colour headlights, carbon vents...whatever. All just by making different layers visible or invisible. When you have a combo you like, save it using "File: Save for Web" to create a jpeg, and then keep on playing with the Photoshop file. Your jpeg is saved and printable, now try a different combo and save that one for comparison.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions or problems. Also, if you don't have photoshop, (or just don't feel like doing all this), let me know and I'll do my best to put your choice of colour onto your choice of photo.

Also, remember you can have fun with this. You want to change the wheels? Select them and make a layer just like you did for the headlights or roof, and play away.
Color-Shift-Main.jpg

[LCD Gauges]

Thank you for taking the time to type this out. Il have to give it a try over the color replacement method.

Your way, although more time consuming, looks much better!

[timmy318]

Just read through it and I greatly appreciate that you took the time and effort to do this! Now on to the endless hours of playing with colors !

[beeman]

Or you can use GIMP, just like Photoshop, but FREE!
http://www.gimp.org/

[Taz Rules]

Or you can use GIMP, just like Photoshop, but FREE!
http://www.gimp.org/

I've heard of GIMP, but never seen it. But yes, if two tools do the same job, and one is free, its kind of a no brainer, isn't it?
I don't know how the specifics of the program work or look, but the basic idea should be the same.

BTW, on another thread, someone said that "This car looks good no matter what color you paint it"

Lets test that theory, shall we?
PornStar-Pink.jpg

[timmy318]

I've heard of GIMP, but never seen it. But yes, if two tools do the same job, and one is free, its kind of a no brainer, isn't it?
I don't know how the specifics of the program work or look, but the basic idea should be the same.

BTW, on another thread, someone said that "This car looks good no matter what color you paint it"

Lets test that theory, shall we?
PornStar-Pink.jpg

Barbie????

[narkosys]

if the roof was black it may actually work O.o

P

[Taz Rules]

if the roof was black it may actually work O.o

P

Hey, Narcosys...I sent you a PM a couple of days ago...

[narkosys]

sorry, i barely look at the top of the forum page. PM sent.

P

[Vman7]

Great tutorial Taz. Nice to know somebody else knows how to do this right.

I find white and black cars the most work, since you have to work with the shading and lighting a lot to get the shine to look just right.