Scanned image...

[Loopy Lisa]

As you may tell from previous posts, I know hardly anything about Photoshop and am trying to learn it on my own...
With this being said I may be asking questions that seem SO kindergarten to some people but I ask that you bear with me, lol...

So.
I scanned an image into PS. It's red and orange in colour (it's actually from a swatch of wallpaper) but I want to make it into a general background that I can use for different projects and apply a different colour to it. How do I do that? As you can see from the attached, it's currently a redish-orange colour...how can I make it a different colour?

I tried googling it using the term "change colour to scanned image in Photoshop" and the one site I linked to, had me do the following: (anything in brackets is what happened when I tried to apply the suggestions)

1. adjust the levels (brightness/contrast)
2. Press CTRL and 'A' at the same time, then CTRL and X (same time), SHIFT and CTRL and then 'N'
3. Use the paint bucket tool and fill the whole layer with black (did this but it came out grey not black...could that be because when I initially set up the document it defaulted to a greyscale background?)
4. Make sure you are still on the 2nd layer and press the 'Quick mask' button. (when I went to apply said black fill, it created another layer...)
5. Press CTRL and V. Your lines should appear in red against a black canvas (nope).
6. Now press the other quick mask button (to switch the other one off), your lines should look like they have little ants crawling around them (nope).
7. Now press CTRL and D. Your nice black lines should be on the 2nd layer with no white stuff.

Anyways I was not successful with this venture (shit if I can't figure out how to draw a line, lol...) in the sense of what I wanted...I guess the other option would to select the whole area and make it into a brush but would it be too big for PS?

Thank you in advance...
P.S. I tried uploading the images and they failed...argh...I'll try again but the images are smaller than the 640 pixel X 640 pixel size as allowed by GDF so I don't know why it's failing to upload...

[morea]

we're having some kind of server problem right now that prevents images from being uploaded (which is also why we still have our 'talk like a pirate day' avatars up).

try hosting the images using www.tinypic.com and posting them... I am not sure exactly what you're doing and images would probably help.

Here's how: http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25438

[Loopy Lisa]

k, I tried it several times both thru here & photobucket...no dice.

[morea]

http://i3.tinypic.com/4vn5mdz.gif

(just testing. tinypic seems to work fine, for the moment.)

[Loopy Lisa]

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o45/loopylisa1/image1.jpg

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o45/loopylisa1/image2.jpg

try this...

[nyc_skater]

Lisa, color adjustments in Photoshop is a fundemental skill to have and is also one of those photoshop things that can be accomplished in a hundred different ways to achieve the same result.

It looks like you googled a kind of specific phrase and got something confusing in return.

I suggest googling or finding a book on photoshop color adjustments, you may find the theories and practices are simpler than you may think.
Google - photoshop replacing color, color swaping etc...leave out the scanner as it doesn't help narrow your search.

As far as actually doing it, try playing with replace color under image/adust/replace color
or play with hue/saturation settings for just one color chanel.

There are many more complex ways to do it and you'll want to learn them so dig in...hope this helps

[morea]

Hmm, I'm still not sure exactly what you're doing. Let's say that you want to take this image and change its color in PS.

Original image:
http://i7.tinypic.com/5xemv0n.jpg

you can click on that middle icon (a circle, half white and half black) in the bottom of the layers palette and then select "Hue/Saturation" to create an adjustment layer. Then drag the sliders around to change the color of the image.

With adjustment layer:
http://i9.tinypic.com/6b2198j.jpg

[morea]

OR you can take that same original image:

Original image:
http://i7.tinypic.com/5xemv0n.jpg

and create a new layer over it (click the new layer icon just to the left of the trash can in the layers palette).

fill the new layer with the desired color, then set the blending mode for the layer - experiment to get the effect you want. You can also reduce the opacity of the colored layer in order to change the effect.

http://i9.tinypic.com/5xo6dyh.jpg

Those are just a few basic ways to do it. As nyc skater said, there are lots of different methods, and changing your search terms will help you find a lot more information about this. (Try googling 'color correction in Photoshop' and stuff like that.)

Hope that helps some.

[Loopy Lisa]

NYC - I was actually gonna go out this weekend and hit the local lib for some PS books and whatnot...thanks for the advice about digging in though :-)

Morea - that's pretty much what I wanted to do thanks for the tips!!

Everything helps guys, merci...

[Broacher]

The best choice for this kind of thing (IMHO) is to use Gradient Map overlay adjustment layer. Once you have access to a gradient line, you can easily remap your tones to whatever you want, and tweak away. And since it's an adjustment layer, you can tweak away as often as necessary.

For one colour remapping-- choose the black to white gradient and just change the black. For other effects, go to it! By copying the 100% control point you can also control where the zones 'clip' very easily.

[urstwile]

For the record, I love the gradient map adjustment layer option. Good advice, Morea and Broacher. :)