Change Object Color in Photoshop – Turn White into Any Color

Using basic blend modes, easily change white into any color including black in Photoshop. Change Object Color in Photoshop. Create realistic colors by combining the power of Blend-If coupled with Adjustment Layers and Blend Modes!

Change Object Color in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we will be using a Solid Color Adjustment Layer along with the Multiply Blend Mode to change the color of a white object. Then, using Curves and Blend-If, we will learn how to add dimension and depth to make the object look natural and realistic.

So we’re going to change the color of this car. It’s a Rolls Royce. And when we do change the color, we’re going to try and account for some of the highlights. Also, there are some blue lights that are reflecting onto the car from above. There’s probably a lot of color bouncing all over the place here.

How to use multiple Selection Tools

So I’ve named the layer car and I’m going to duplicate it CMD+J. And we need to make a selection so we can use any selection tool that you’re comfortable with or that, you know, works well. I’m going to come up here to the toolbar and I’m going to go with the object selection tool.

You also want to make sure that you select object finder and this wheel is going to start spinning as it’s working on the image. So now when you come down here to your image, you can see all the objects that Photoshop has selected.

We’re interested in the car. So when you click on the car and it’s been selected and now we can use other selection tools to start to refine this. I’m going to come up and grab the quick selection tool and make my brush a little bit bigger with my left and right brackets.

And I’m going to hold down the alt or option key, going to hold down the option key on a Mac, and I’m going to subtract from the selection and bring the selection above the tires. Zoom in here a little bit.

Now I need to add in where the windows are pressing the option and letting Photoshop work its magic here. This could be a challenging selection, so we’re going to refine this as best we can right now. I’ll do the windshield now, get that all squared away, still holding down the.

Alt or option and subtracting from my selection. And you can use more than one tool in your selections. So now I’m going to go back to the object selection tool. In this time, I’m going to use the rectangle with select the rectangle up here.

I’m still removing from the selection, so it’s selected that reflector area right there. Really good. Do the same thing on this logo. Let’s see if it will work in here. It did. Which you can also do is change this to Lasso, and I’m still on subtract from selection.

So just to make sure the option is held down. Drawing around that can come down here. So just showing you can use more than one tool to make a selection. See what this does. OK, not bad. I’m going to go back to the quick selection tool just for a moment.

Now you can refine this. You can take your time and refine it. One thing I wanted to show you is if I hit “Q” I’ll go what’s into quick mask mode. If I zoom in here, you can see all the way around.

We’re right near the windows where all this I call Chrome Area is. But I can use my brush tool and I can clean this up pretty well. So just in this area here, my foreground color is white. I can click.

Right, their position, my brush. Come up in pressed shift. And it kind of cleans it up all in one motion right there. So it’s just another technique that you can use to quickly brush away something and clean up your selection.

And you can really take your time and say that these selections. But there’s an example of how you can use multiple-selection methods to complete a selection that might be challenging.

How to Change Object Color to Any Color

So now that we have our selection, the next thing we’re going to do is we need to create a group control or CMD+G.

That is, a group and your car layer here is in that group with the group selected. I’m going to come down here to the create layer mask icon. Inside the mask is on the group. So anything I do in that group is going to affect the car.

So we’re going to add some adjustment layers here. And so all those adjustments are going to operate on this group. So now we need to choose a color. So my goal was to get a similar color to this. It’s not going to be exact.

This car has a lot of light coming down on the top of it. I think you would need to go to Rolls-Royce itself and find out the exact color. Now we need to do is come down here and we need to get a solid color adjustment layer.

And so this slider right here is the hue. If I were to pick a color here, so if I slide down, it’s making the color darker. I come up, it’s making the color lighter. I want it less saturated.

I move it to the left. That’s less saturated, more saturation. But in this color picker, I think I already know kind of what color I want, and I’m going to just copy it in there and say, OK. And of course, if I double click on my colorful layer right here, I’m going to call this Car Color.

If I double click on the solid color adjustment layer I can come back in and change the color if I want. So on the car color there only changed the blend mode to multiply. But sometimes a blend mode can give you something that is close to what you want and you try different ones.

In this case, we’re going to go with Multiply. If I hold down the alt or option. You can see that the original car, these highlights, or these lights that are coming from above shine through. So if we want to go after that, so now I want to get a curves adjustment layer and then click on

the hand tool right here. As you can see, the hand tool has arrows. You can move the hand tool up and down to get your adjustment. The graph here is going up down here. I’m going to bring this hand down a little bit and go to different areas here.

I want this darker down here. So it’s made all the points on a curve for us. They sort of bring back some of that shine. I can add another curves adjustment layer and I’m bringing up brightness pretty high there.

Double click on that new curves adjustment layer and come down here to the underlying layer and move this slider over. Hit the alt or option so that I can split this and kind of dial that into where I might like it and say, OK. If you want more highlights, you can duplicate your last curves layer, CMD+J.

Double click and adjust these sliders to your liking. So something like that, so that is changing this white car to a kind of an orangish car. Do me a favor. Hit that like button. It really helps the channel.

I appreciate it. So now we’re going to take that same white car and we’re going to change it to black and I have my same mask in a group. Here’s my car color solid color adjustment layer. I’m going to double click and here’s my color picker.

Choose a color that is dark and choose a color that is close to black. Most black actually has a little gray, and it’s not totally black, so I choose something like that and say, OK. So in the car color layer right here, I’m going to change the blend mode.

You can play with all these blend modes. You can see what they do. Color burn is kind of interesting giving like a really blue linear burn and really choosing the one that works for you. It’s a nice gray color.

I’m going to go with linear light. What I like about linear light is you could see some of these blue highlights that are coming from the lights above. They’re in the windows or on the sides here. So we’ll go which the Linear Light.

So now I’m going to add a curves adjustment layer because we want those highlights back, you know, drag this curve all the way up here or something like that. And on that new curves adjustment layer, I’m going to double click here is my layer style.

And I’m going to come down here to the underlying layer and change this. I’m going to hit alt or option and spread this slider apart a little bit here. We have a lot of our lights that are shining from above, you know, come down here to the car color layer, double click and use blend if again and I’m going to move

this over here so you can see a little bit better. But down here on the bottom of the car, what we’re missing is the reflection of the carpet down here and all these stripes so I can use my underlying layer adjustment right here.

Split that with alt or option and see that comes back and say OK. And again I want more shine a reflection from light above. Come up here to my curves adjustment layer. Say CMD+ J and duplicate it. I have to double click to bring up my layer styles and down here on the underlying layer.

I’m going to make whatever adjustments I need to change just to see what I like. Something like that and say, OK. If you want more tutorials like this, click or tap on one of the videos on the screen now.

If you haven’t already like, share and subscribe and remember, it’s never too late to learn. Thanks for watching. See you in the next video.

How to Change Object Color from White to Black

So now we’re going to take that same white car and we’re going to change it to black and I have my same mask in a group. Here’s my car color solid color adjustment layer. I’m going to double click and here’s my color picker.

Choose a color that is dark and choose a color that is close to black. Most black actually has a little gray, and it’s not totally black, so I choose something like that and say, OK. So in the car color layer right here, I’m going to change the blend mode.

You can play with all these blend modes. You can see what they do. Color burn is kind of interesting gives like a really blue linear burn and really choose the one that works for you. It’s a nice gray color.

I’m going to go with linear light. What I like about linear light is you could see some of these blue highlights that are coming from the lights above. They’re in the windows or on the sides here. So we’ll go which the Linear Light.

So now I’m going to add a curves adjustment layer because we want those highlights back, you know, drag this curve all the way up here or something like that. And on that new curves adjustment layer, I’m going to double click here is my layer style.

And I’m going to come down here to the underlying layer and change this. I’m going to hit alt or option and spread this slider apart a little bit here. We have a lot of our lights that are shining from above, you know, come down here to the car color layer, double click and use blend if again and I’m going to move

this over here so you can see a little bit better. But down here on the bottom of the car, what we’re missing is the reflection of the carpet down here and all these stripes so I can use my underlying layer adjustment right here.

Split that with alt or option and see that comes back and say OK. And again I want more shine a reflection from the light above. Come up here to my curves adjustment layer. Say CMD+ J and duplicate it. I have to double click to bring up my layer styles and down here on the underlying layer.

See my previous blog article here ➡️ Creating a Double Exposure in Photoshop – Easy Double Exposure Effect

Check out my photography website here ➡️ https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com