goodly designs for the average tasteful chapManipulating Colors in Photoshop
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This is a really useful and nifty thing to know. I find it very helpful, being a roleplayer, since adjusting my characters' eye colors creates a nice and sometimes creepy effect. Its actually pretty easy, so read on.
First, open a document in photoshop. We're going to be changing the eye color of a cat, so you might want to do something similar for your first go at it.
Now you should zoom in on the area you want to manipulate. I've zoomed in on the eye. (Its just not pixelated because the image I'm using is huge.)
Now click on the magic selection brush tool.
Set your settings to match mine. The overlay color isn't too important to have the same as long as you can see it.
Set the brush to a good size and now color in the area you want selected with this tool. It acts just like any other brush, but don't be alarmed--You're not actually coloring on the image.
Don't feel like you have to start over if you mess up, I'm going to show you something cool.
You can invert the area you've selected by going Select, Inverse. This will switch the area you selected with the one you didn't. If you colored an area you didn't mean to color it over with the selection inverted and then switch it back.
When you're satisfied with your selection, make sure its inverted. The area you want selected will not be colored in.
Now if you click on the magic wand tool, you will see the right area encircled in marching ants, but you don't need to do that.
In the top menu, select "Enhance, Adjust Color, Adjust Hue/Saturation...".
A menu will pop up. Slide the bars around to your liking--You'll be able to preview how your image will look while you do this if the preview box is checked in the corner. You can see my settings below.
Click "OK" and you could finish and save here if you like how your image looks. However, for the sake you your knowledge, we're going to keep manipulating, because there is another way of going about this. So this is how my image currently looks:
Go "Enhance, Adjust Color, Color Variations..." in the top menu.
A window will pop up showing your selection and at the bottom there will be previews on what the image will look like if you add more red, green, etc.
Click these nifty buttons to your liking and click OK when you're satisfied. After adjusting my image like so, my result is slightly different:
Feel free to play around (try clicking the colorize button in the Adjust Hue/Saturation Menu!) and have fun making funky pictures!!
