How to select multi-part of a same color?

[Herve]

Hi,

Imagine you have a picture with some parts (surfaces) in a XXX specific color.
How to easily select only all these parts to modify their color?

Any idea?
Thanks.

[LeviFiction]

Very easy actually and I just happen to know two or three methods.

The first two are best for actual solid colors. Though their use of "Tolerance" does make it possible to use them on photos. The third makes use of tools for changing colors in photos.

1) You can use the magic wand tool with "Contiguous" turned off. The magic wand tool creates a selection based on colors similar to the one you click on, and there are various modes for matching colors by. There is even a tolerance level to get colors that are pretty close to the color you picked on if you want to use that option. "Contiguous" means that all selected pixels have to be touching each other. So if you had an image with two red splotches on it but those splotches were separated by any number of pixels it would only select the splotch that you initially clicked on. But with "Contiguous" turned off it will go ahead and search the entire image selecting all matching colors so both splotches would get selected.

You could then use any number of the color adjustments or color brushes.

I have a terrible tutorial on the magic wand tool here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeqB5IIv ... A&index=20

And here is the "Change to Target brush" which gives the option for changing colors, using a brush, and is great for photo work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HAQOmIS ... A&index=38

2) A second method is to select the entire image using "Select All" (Ctrl +A) then use the modify command "Select Color Range" you can find it in "Selections -> Modify -> Select Color Range." This command allows you to either add a specific color to a selection or remove it from the selection. In this case we're working backwards so we want to remove the color you want to select. Make sure the preview window is open and select the color that you want to change and make sure the "Remove from selection" option is checked. Click on the color and the selection should update to exclude that color. Hit "OK" to accept that change. Now we will invert the selection so that what was once selected is now unselected and what was not selected will become selected we go to the "Selections -> Invert Selection" command in the menu.

You can then use any number of the color adjustments or color brushes.

I haven't made a tutorial on this one yet.

3) A third method involves using either the paint-bucket tool or the color changer tool. The paint-bucket tool is essentially like the magic wand tool but it fills in the matching pixels with the color that you have in the materials palette.

The color changer tool, however, tries to maintain the tone of the image which is great for photos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VlORsx- ... A&index=45

[Herve]

Hi,

Good and clear explanations


Thanks you very much!