Saturday, 23 January 2016

Altering Colors in Paint Shop Pro

PSP has several tools for changing the colour of part of an image.
 You can select an area and simply apply a change in Hue and Saturation, found under the Adjust drop down list.


Also, the following can be found in your tools palette:

Color Replacer brush

Found in early versions of PSP grouped with eye dropper

In later versions it is grouped with other adjustment brushes:


The toolbar:

To use the tool:
Select the colour you wish to replace in the background materials palette and your replacement material [color, gradient or pattern/with/without texture ] as the foreground material.
Even if the area is fairly uniformly coloured you will need to adjust the tolerance to get good coverage.
The pixels will be replaced by a "flat" fill ..with no consideration for shading.
There is also the option to change all of the similar pixels in the image...where it acts more as a fill rather than brush.
It is a useful tool for images with limited tonal qualities and for some special effects.
Remember that you can use any of your brushes!
It is the sort of tool that I tend to use after I duplicate my image ..and great to produce grungy effects.

Change to target ...also a brush
In older versions of PSP grouped with some adjustment brushes:


In later versions they are all lumped together:

Toolbar
This is a  "clever" brush with the ability to cover any area selected with your brush with any material selected in your foreground materials, whilst maintaining the tonal qualities underneath.
VERY useful brush.
Try using the various modes for different options.  Use left click  for foreground materials and right click for background.

 Color Changer
New in later versions PSP X1 onwards
Color Changer is not a brush but a fill option. It works in a similar fashion to the color replacer but a bit  better than the color replacer for large areas. ..and I think gives a better result.


There are only a couple of settings and an apply button to click.

This tool will only work with the colour palette but you can change the color as many times as you wish before applying the effect ...simply by altering the colour in the foreground palette!
You can also change the tolerance and edge-softness on the fly.

Here are a couple of links which are worth reading:
From book by Ken McMahon
From Corel ..This uses a selection

It is worth experimenting with all of these tools :) You will find some better for some jobs than others or maybe a combination will work better for you.
It is always worth working with a duplicate of your original !!! ...or even a duplicate layer.
Judy




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