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Help: Change brown to white


CodyRoche

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I am shooting product pictures of hats for a friend. I used Photoshop to create a ghost-mannequin style shot of the hat. They have four different colors of hats. I have managed to change the colors to match three hats. But I am having troubles changing the colors to a believable white. I have tried using hue/saturation and black/white adjustment layers. Neither of them get me anywhere close. The closest I have gotten, is by inverting the colors and then dropping the blue/cyan colors using hue/saturation. But this looks "off" because the shadows in the fabric become highlights and highlights, shadows.

This has been driving me crazy for weeks. I feel that it should be possible. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! If need be, I can probably post a picture a little later on.
 

IamSam

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Here's one way.

Brown .....
Screen Shot 2019-07-01 at 12.05.37 PM.png

To white....
Screen Shot 2019-07-01 at 12.05.17 PM.png

Isolate hat (remove background)

View the channels panel and see which layer is the lightest. In this case it was red. Return channels back to RGB.

Create a new layer above the hat layer.
Go to IMAGE > APPLY IMAGE choose the red channel (See settings below)
Screen Shot 2019-07-01 at 12.09.31 PM.png

Go to LAYER > NEW FILL LAYER > Solid Color > select white > set blending mode to "overlay".
Clip this layer to the applied image layer.

Go to LAYER > NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER > Hue/Saturation.
Clip this layer to the solid color layer.
Adjust the lightness higher to satisfaction (+51 in this case)

Screen Shot 2019-07-01 at 12.18.48 PM.png
 

CodyRoche

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I tried the method listed above and am still coming up with poor results. Maybe it is my execution. Here is a PNG of the hat I am trying to convert to white. I am new to the form so let me know if I need to change anything about upload.

Don't worry about masking out letters or stars. I am capable of masking those out appropriately once I have the white part down. The darker brown and the tan need to be white.

Thanks again for the help!
brown-hat.png
 

IamSam

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Your hat was a bit more of a challenge! I had to use a different technique altogether. 10 layers total.

Screen Shot 2019-07-02 at 1.39.31 AM.png

Same principle as above, I just removed the white color fill layer and substituted a black & white adjustment layer for the applied image layer. But I still used the H&S layer and a Curves adjustment layer to accentuate the highlights.

I had to separate the mesh area and the darker backside of the band. I used H&S layers to add the white.

Top half of layers panel...
Screen Shot 2019-07-02 at 1.50.11 AM.png

Bottom half.
Screen Shot 2019-07-02 at 1.49.50 AM.png
 

Redz166

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awesome guide!, there is also another method to do this, i will try to share a guide as soon as i get the chance.

test.jpg
 

CodyRoche

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Your hat was a bit more of a challenge! I had to use a different technique altogether. 10 layers total.
Same principle as above, I just removed the white color fill layer and substituted a black & white adjustment layer for the applied image layer. But I still used the H&S layer and a Curves adjustment layer to accentuate the highlights.

Alright, you're going to have to give me a hint as to what you're doing in the top three adjustment layers. Apparently I don't grasp their functionality enough to reproduce your results without any context.
 

IamSam

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Alright, you're going to have to give me a hint as to what you're doing in the top three adjustment layers. Apparently I don't grasp their functionality enough to reproduce your results without any context.
Sure.

Screen Shot 2019-07-03 at 3.28.21 PM.png

Screen Shot 2019-07-03 at 3.28.31 PM.png

Screen Shot 2019-07-03 at 3.28.41 PM.png
 

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