X2 - How to change part of an image's background color?

[nice2meetyou]

Hey,
I am continiously trying to improve my PSP skills but I am currently stuck to adjust part of my image's background color so that it better matches the real object.

Have a look to this collectible pin which I photographed:
http://mypins.de/ibm/pin_png/pin0467.png

The text which is printed in a circle lays on a dark background. On the picture is seems to be nearly black but in real it is a dark blue.

I tried all color options under Adjust but nothing really picks just this area.

What is the trick? Please advice. Thank you.

Regards, Manfred

[Grazie]

Here is the Original:-

Here is my approach using 2 Layers:
Background Layer Channel Blend;
Upper Layer 2 Levels Adjustment Layers
and Compositing the Background and Upper Layers
using 57% Saturation (1). There is a bit more BLUE coming on:-

Here's the X6 Layout:-

Grazie

[Joelle]

Hey,
I am continiously trying to improve my PSP skills but I am currently stuck to adjust part of my image's background color so that it better matches the real object.

Have a look to this collectible pin which I photographed:
http://mypins.de/ibm/pin_png/pin0467.png

The text which is printed in a circle lays on a dark background. On the picture is seems to be nearly black but in real it is a dark blue.

I tried all color options under Adjust but nothing really picks just this area.

What is the trick? Please advice. Thank you.

Regards, Manfred

You could try the Color Replacer Tool, which lives with the Brushes.
Sample the exisiting background colour>hold the Ctrl key and use the right mouse button.

Select the colour you want to use> Ctrl key again, left mouse button, then paint over all of the existing background colour.
To make your life easier selecting the area would be helpful, but not essential.
Just zoom into the image and keep the brush size small.
Using a high Tolerance setting is necessary to get good coverage.

Joëlle

(Ignore the layout of my toolbar, I like to customize)

[hartpaul]

Are the letters on the dark background supposed to be white? If so they appear a if they have a yellow cast and that may be also what is making the darker blue appear black.
You can use the magic wand set at RGB Tolerance 10 and untick contiguous to select the darker areas with a number of clicks and then use Adjust Red/Gren/Blue to change that area to a dark blue.
I used Red -52, Green -18, Blue + 30 to get a deep blue.
Best would be to rephotograph with correct white balance.

[Grazie]

Best would be to rephotograph with correct white balance.

Yes, plus dispersed lighting.

G

[photodrawken]

What is the trick?

No "trick" is necessary -- just make an accurate selection.

1. Use the Magic Wand with the Mode set to "Add", the Match Mode set to "RGB Value", the Tolerance set to "50", and the Contiguous option selected.

2. Click on the blue background between the "D" and the "P" to select all the blue except for the areas within the loops of the various letters.

3. Click on each of those little enclosed areas to add them to your selection.

Now you can add any sort of adjustment layer, and its effect will be applied only to that original blue area. Inverting the selection will allow you to affect all the remaining areas, if you need that:

The layers look like this:

ring layers.png (17.97 KiB) Viewed 2901 times

[photodrawken]

If you simply want to even out the tone of the blue background, use a Curves adjustment layer:

The layers look like this:

ring corrected layers.png (15.54 KiB) Viewed 2895 times

And the final result:

If you also want to even out the colours of the gold, that's probably impossible to do in PSP. The problem is that not only are there "blown out" areas at the top, the underexposed areas at the bottom also have a green cast. It might be correctable using PhotoLine (where you can work in the Lab colour space), and would probably need a gradient mask for the adjustment layer(s), too.

[nice2meetyou]

Hi again,
I am back after having tested all your many and fantastic advices. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. This really helped me to skill-up. I must admit that I am farer away from becoming an expert as expected but piece by piece I will improve.

For my case I really made a few new shots with different white balance settings. It only slightly helped but nearly sufficient.

One of you asked if the letters are white - no they are golden.

I love the color replacer tool and tested with different sub-settings like Tolerance and Hardness - great tool. I might use it more often.

Ok, for this post. I think it is closed now.

Well done folks. Thank you.

Regards, Manfred
http://mypins.de/ibm/