Once upon a time I used to recolor by using the Colorize option.  The results were not always optimal.  One day while playing with the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer I learned that I could pinpoint specific hues and change them!  This changed my recoloring-life.  Seriously.  It was a moment where the heavens opened and angels started singing!   If you aren’t afraid of watching a very silly/giggly tutorial hit play.  If you want a step-by-step text/image tutorial just keep on scrolling!

If video tutorials aren’t you thing here is a step-by-step of how I created the above effects!  The kit used for this tutorial is called Lemonade Stand by Mommyish. It is 50% off Tuesday-Thursday! *inserts shameless plug*

Open the element or paper you would like to change.  For this I have selected a little word art piece that I want to remove the coral in exchange for a gender neutral orange.

Above this layer you add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.  If you do not have this on your tool palette you can get to it by going to Window > Adjustments then click  the Hue/Saturation icon. 

After I have added the adjustment layer I create a new layer above both the element/paper and adjustment layer.  I take my paintbrush and just scribble over the element with the color I want to achieve.  For this tutorial I want to change the coral to orange.

After I have my color sampled I then play around with my adjustment layer.  This is where the magic happens!  You will need to determine the main colors of your element and then adjust accordingly.  Coral uses a red hue so from the drop down I choose red as the color I would like to adjust.  If I was going to change the teal color I would choose cyan.  If I was going to change the yellow I would choose yellow.

There are three sliders you can move.  The first is the most important: Hue.  By sliding this we can change the coral to orange.. or any other color!  Saturation effects how much OOMPH the color has while lightness can either deepen or lighten it up.  By using all three you could create completely different effects.  Play around and have fun!

When you have accomplished the look you want you can delete the sample color layer and merge the adjustment layer with your element.  I save the file as something new and call it done!  You can also pull your edited hue/saturation layer into other element documents with the same color you want to change to gain the same color effect on multiple items (as you can see in the first image of the post)

As you can see to the left here are a few samples of the elements in the kit and then a quick recolor to remove the “pink coral” with a more gender neutral orange that also matches the kit!  Many times we may like a kit but one color might be off-putting to our personal tastes.  It is easier than you think to recolor one specific hue in a palette!  While this may be a bit more of an advanced tutorial – once you get the hang of it you will find yourself going back to this technique over and over again!

 

In the past I might have used recoloring skills to pull pranks on long-distance family members.  (or maybe I just wanted to see if I could pull off pink hair)  My hair pulls from a yellow hue.  All I did was add the hue/saturation layer and adjust the yellow slider while erasing some extra color areas to maintain realism. (the lamp shade behind my shoulder, for example) You can use your eraser brush on the hue/saturation layer!

I hope you enjoyed this somewhat silly tutorial.  Don’t be afraid to play around.  You never know what fun effects you might accomplish just by experimenting!

 

 About the Author: Leah is the designer behind Mommyish and owner of The Digital Press. She lives in the beautiful lower Hudson Valley of NY with her husband, two girls, and in-laws! She has a love for all things geeky and quirky. In addition to being a graphic designer, she is an avid pianist.

I’m back again with another tutorial based on a question asked on my last post – how do you use a gradient as a clipping mask?

First, I converted a flower photo into a black and white pencil drawing as I showed you in my last tutorial.

I flattened the flower image and copied it into a new layer on top of this grey background paper I want to use for my layout.

Next, I want the flower drawing to look like it is growing upwards from the bottom of the page, and I want it to be pretty big.  After re-sizing, it looks like this:

Then, I want to blend this into my background paper, but I’m a super lazy scrapbooker, so I’m going to use a gradient fill to do the heavy lifting for me on this layout.

First, create a new layer in the layers palette.  The new layer should be between the background paper and your pencil drawing.

I don’t want to do a ton of erasing after doing the gradient fill, so I’m going to use the outline of my photo layer to make a boundary for the gradient.  With the new blank layer in between your other layers selected, hold your mouse over the layer thumbnail of your pencil drawing layer in the layers palette and ctrl-mouseclick on the thumbnail.

Your pencil drawing layer will have the dotted selection line around it, but in the layers palette, the middle layer will still be selected.

It will be easier to see what you are doing for the next steps if you turn the visibility of your pencil drawing layer off in the layers palette (click on the eye symbol associated with that layer).

On the left toolbar, select the Gradient tool (or use the ‘G’ key as a shortcut).

In the top toolbar, click the Gradient Picker drop-down box and select the solid to transparent gradient.  This will appear as a color on one side and transparent (the white and gray checkerboard pattern on the other).

 

I’m using red as my main color here so that it’s easier to see.  Since the gradient will be used as a clipping mask, it doesn’t matter what the main color you are using is.  Make sure the Dither and Transparency boxes on the right side of the toolbar are checked.

The Gradient tool draws a gradient from solid to transparent (in this case).  So click first on the side of your line drawing that you want to be solid, then, drag your mouse in the direction you want the photo to fade.  Because we are using the outline of your pencil drawing layer as a selection boundary, it will limit where the gradient ends to inside the selection.  My document now looks like this:

Turn your pencil drawing layer back on (click on the eye next to the layer thumbnail).  We are going to clip this layer to the gradient underneath it.  You can do this one of two ways:

1. Hold your mouse between the pencil drawing and gradient layers and hold down the Alt key. Your cursor will turn into a box with an arrow pointing downward next to it.  Click your mouse button and the top layer will now be clipped to the middle layer.
2. Right click on your pencil drawing layer and choose ‘Create Clipping Mask’.

My layout now looks like this:

You can move the pencil drawing and gradient layers around until your layout looks good, and you can also use the eraser tool on the gradient layer to tailor the blending to your liking.  For the eraser, I like to use a big brush at 5% flow – this only erases 5% of the area that I move my mouse over for each pass, so this blends well and it’s hard to see where I’ve erased.

After some erasing at the top, and around each flower (where the flower petals appear to have shadows), photos, elements and journaling, my completed layout looks like this:

I hope this was helpful – happy scrapping!

 

Supplies Used:
Winter Berries by The Digital Press Designers
A Day in the Life: Solids by Sugarplum Paperie

 

About the Author:  Kacy is an Environmental Engineer living in Arizona with a elderly, cranky, pudgy, but insanely cute calico kitty.  She enjoys scrapbooking, crocheting, dancing awkwardly to electronic dance music, Grumpy Cat, Scottish accents, drag queens, cupcakes, bacon,  Stephen King books, smirking, very crude inside jokes, and men in kilts.