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How to make a pattern solid without losing details and texture?


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Hello everybody.

I have tried everything and looked everywhere for an answer, but still no help to find.
Therefore I'm now turning to you guys.

I'm working on changing the colors of certain fahion styles, and I've run into a problem.
I have this jacket with a camuflage print, but I need to remove the print, and make the jacket a solid color, for example black, blue, green. But I can't seem to find a way to do it where you are able to keep the details and the texture of the jacket, instead of just making it flat.

Really hope someone can help.

15_076_art.jpg
 
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colleague

Guru
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can you please post the image, so that we can see the texture and the camouflage-print
 

Tom Mann

Guru
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In my experience, this is a surprisingly difficult and annoying problem.

The best results that I have ever seen from a semi-automated method to do what you asked were obtained by using the frequency separation method, but even these results were disappointing.

The frequency separation method is usually applied to skin / portrait retouching. It works by dividing the image up into two spatial frequency bands. The high spatial frequencies correspond to very small feature sizes, for example, individual pores, or, in your application, the individual threads and weave pattern of the cloth. The low spatial frequencies correspond to larger feature sizes, ie, features that occupy a significant fraction of the image dimensions.

In the case of head shots, the lower spatial frequencies contain the major features of the face, and the shadows cast by them.

In the case of camouflage patterns on cloth, the high spatial frequencies contain (a) the threads, stitching, and weave patterns of the cloth, whereas the low spatial frequencies contain (b1) the overall lighting distribution and shadows, and (b2) the camouflage pattern.

The problem is that to do what you asked, you need to remove (b2), while not touching (b1) or (a), and you need to do this in a convincingly realistic manner. This is beyond the capabilities of this method. If you can't separate (b1) from (b2) because they are in the same spatial frequency range, and you simply remove or reduce both of them at the same time, then, as you discovered, you've just removed the lighting distribution and shadows along with the camo pattern, and this can look really odd, or, to use your word, "flat".

At the other extreme, if you don't remove all traces of the camo pattern, and, for example, ghosts of the edges of each of the differently colored areas might remain, making it obvious that the image has been manipulated, ie, fake.

My feeling is that if it is essential to your customer's business, their best option is probably to bite the bullet, and make up 2 or 3 versions of the design using a plain, non-camo, but textured fabric, say, one in a light gray, and one in a dark gray, and then use photoshop to turn these into any color they need. Depending on exactly what will be seen, perhaps a seamstress can just sew the new gray fabric right over an existing camo version instead of making up a new one from scratch.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. If you find a method that works, I would love to hear about it, so please let us know, and, if at all possible, please post a before-after example.

Cheers,

Tom M
 
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Tom Mann

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The only way that I can think of is by manually painting back in the thread texture, as well as larger scale shadows & highlights.

T
 

colleague

Guru
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here is the psd
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bpdkafb4tqeqmzk/milet.psd?dl=0

you can see how I came to this result by clicking the layers vissible one by one

I started with 'curves 1 adjustment layer' followed by curves 2 + 3 + 4
but that took too much time

than I made a new layer 5 with mode on 'soft light' and used white brush on the darkest parts of the pattern
and repeated this with layer 6+7+8+9

I merged all in a new layer and used healing brush to clean the image
 

Tom Mann

Guru
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That's excellent work, Colleague!

Just so the OP has some idea of how much time she should allow, roughly how long did it take you to manually paint the part that you did?

Again, thank you for the great demo!!!

Tom M
 
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I can't make it work for me.
I haven't used curves that much before, and can't seem to see how you only made it affect certain areas?
 

Jerry D

Power User
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I started with 'curves 1 adjustment layer' followed by curves 2 + 3 + 4
but that took too much time

than I made a new layer 5 with mode on 'soft light' and used white brush on the darkest parts of the pattern
and repeated this with layer 6+7+8+9

I merged all in a new layer and used healing brush to clean the image

You need to keep repeating the instructions in bold above, not curves layers. When you have a uniform
color over all then go to the last step.
 

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