(Editing) COLOR SWAP (Swaps one color for another color)

Click here to show the Color Adjusting screen.

COLOR SWAP is a term used to indicate that you are replacing ONE color for ANOTHER color in a photo. So, you could make a blue car look red instead. You could also turn a purple sweater into a tan sweater. The possiblities are endless. Let's discuss what is needed to achieve this great feat.

HOW OTHERS DO COLOR SWAPPING

First of all, the Color Swap feature can be found in some cameras. Canon for example, has a color swap feature that works "decent" for colored objects that don't vary much in it's color or the shade of the color you are wanting to replace. Once you get into objects that have bright sides and dark sides then the Color Swap feature built into the camera starts to degrade fast and then the results are mediocre to poor. In order to produce great results in varying colors AND shades, you need more sophisticated software such as Photo Jockey.


HOW PHOTO JOCKEY DOES COLOR SWAPPING

Photo Jockey performs the Color Swapping feature by using the COLOR RANGE feature in the Color Adjusting screen. The color range feature allows you to pick a color with an Eye Dropper. This color is called the color range color. For example: If you clicked on the red car, then you would see that red is the selected color range.

After you select the color range color, make sure that you chose a color that is appropriate for your desires. For example: If you clicked on the red portion of a red car that was in a dark shadow, then DON'T expect the rest of the car in the sunlight to be SWAPPED with great accuracy. Likewise don't pick the brightest red, because then the shadowy areas won't be swapped very good either. So, pick a medium shade of red. Then both the brighter areas and darker areas will be swapped very nicely.

In order to determine that you have picked an appropriate shade of red, just select with the eye-dropper the RED color you would like to use. THEN take the brightness slider and slide it ALL THE WAY TO THE LEFT. This will take the brightness of the color range color down to total black. So, if you see most or all of the car turning black, then you know you selected a good shade of red. If only a small portion of the car turns black, then you should probably re-select the color range color.

Once you have chosen a good color range color, you can then use ANY COLOR ADJUSTER SLIDER. So, with that in mind, you could use the HUE slider. This changes the color from RED to whatever color you desire.

At this point you are done doing the color swap.

NOTES:
Follow these steps to get the best Color Swapping quality:

Load your photo

Enter the Color Adjusting screen

Checkmark the "Color Range" checkbox.

Pick the Color Range color: Click on the colored square next to the color range checkbox. Then pick "Select Color On Image". Use the Eye-Dropper to select the color. You can use the scroll bars to scroll around the image if it's a large image. Click the "Stop Selecting Color" button when done.

Verify it's a proper color: Slide the BRIGHTNESS slider all the way to the left. Your selected color should go to black throughout your photo. If not enough of your chosen color goes to black, go back and pick a different shade of the color. Pick a color that transforms most/all of your selected color to black. If troubles, adjust the tolerance sliders.

Adjust tolerance sliders: If you can't seem to get most of your color range color to go to black, you may play with the "Color Sensitivity" and "Shade Sensitivity" sliders. The color tolerance slider allows more/less colors to be considered for adjustments. The shade sensitivity allows more/less shades to be considered for adjustments.

Put the BRIGHTNESS slider back to its default position, once you have a decent Color Range Color selected.

Adjust HUE slider to get the desired color swap effect.

You are done

TROUBLE-SHOOTING: It's possible that you may want to change a red car to a blue car, so you select the color red. But if there is a red stop sign in the photo, that sign will ALSO get changed to blue. THIS IS UNDESIRABLE. In order to avoid this, you can use the "Draw Region For Adjusting" mode instead of the "Full Image Adjusting" mode. Then draw around the car (making sure you do NOT include the stop sign).  The shape you draw does NOT need to be perfect, just make sure it does NOT include objects that may be affected by the color swap.



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