Changing a Car's Colour in Photoshop
By Rashad Nsouli | Photoshop CS3 | Beginner

This tutorial will teach you how to give a car a whole new paint job in Photoshop. We will be changing the car's color by selecting specific parts we want to paint and subtract the parts we want to leave unpainted, then we'll fill the selection with the desired paint color, apply to it various Layer Blending Modes and finally obtain our new painted car. Below is an example of what you will be achieving by the end of this tutorial.


Start off by opening the image of the car you want to re-color in Photoshop. I have used this image through out the tutorial, you are free to practice this tutorial using it to get similar results to the one shown above.
http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/original.jpg

We will start off by selecting the parts of the car which we wish to change their color. In this sample image we are using, the part to be colored is the body of the car without the headlights. Even though we can select the part we need by using a combination of the Selection Tools found on the Tools Panel(these consist of the Marquee Tools http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/marquee.gif Lasso Tools http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/lasso.gif and Magic Wand http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/wand.gif. I think that it is easier to achieve a better result by using the Pen Tool http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/pen.gif to trace certain areas of the car into Custom Vector Shapes, then Select their Pixels and paint on them using Blending Modes. Grab your Pen Tool http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/pen.gif nd start tracing out the two shapes shown in the screenshot below.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/2.jpg

Your should now have two Custom Vector Shapes in your Layers Panel, one is for the main body and one is for the headlights.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/3.jpg

Our objective is to select the body without the headlights. which means we will Select the Pixels of the body first, then Subtract the pixels of the headlights out of it, do so by holding Ctrl and clicking on the main body's layer and then holding Ctrl+Alt and click on the headlight's layer. This will subtract the headlights layer from the car body layer. You should now see that the main body is selected without the headlights as shown below.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/4.jpg

We are now going to start painting the car blue. Set your Background Color to #108195 and then go through Layer>New>Layer and press Ctrl+Backspace to fill the layer with the Background Color you chose. Access the Layers Panel then change the Layer Blending Mode to Color and Opacity to 85%.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/5.jpg

This is how your image is going to look now
http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/6.jpg

Go through Layer>New>Layer and press Ctrl+Backspace to fill the layer with the Background Color. From your Layers Panel, change the Layer Blending Mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 85%.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/7.jpg

Go through Layer>New>Layer and press Ctrl+Backspace to fill the layer with the Background Color. From your Layers Panel, change the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay and Opacity to 85%.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/8.jpg

Finally, change your Background Colour to #313841. Go to Layer>New>Layer and press Ctrl+Backspace to fill the layer with the Background Color. From your Layers Panel, change the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay. This will make the color look darker and vibrant.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/9.jpg

Your final image will now look like the this. You can try out applying other colors and playing with the layers' parameters to achieve a closer result to reality.

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/10.jpg

By Camaro_Burns_All


1)Open original image

2)Top menu bar:
Go to Effect\ Lighting\cool or warm Select the colour you like. and save as Color

3)Open the Original image

4) Copy the Color picture, paste as an OBJECT over the Original picture

5) You will have a mask/rectangle around it all now. just ignore this, and select the erase icon 12th down the left side, and start erasing the areas you don't want to show the color you selected.

This has to be precise, so take it slowly


6) Once its finished just click on OBJECT and merge then save.

This is way easier than using Adobe. same principal applies

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/photoshop/change_color/original.jpg

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h293/BestMiler1/original.jpg

very very nice. i'l try that.