Make selection by specifying color range

[PutinHuilo]

Hello i am trying to make selection to later convert to layer mask - need to select a precise color range.
I know how to identify what color range i need selected, but i don't now what tool to use to select it?

Original photo



First just out if curiosity i identified that hair color is somewhere in red-yellow color range.


Next i identified that color i need to select is between cyan-blue range




Now i want to select cyan-blue color range that i have identified.

Down in the "color range" there is no option to actually specify range or use slider like on the bottom of HUE/Saturation tool, only options for colors is to select cyan or blue pre-defined ranges.
Samples colors option is slightly closer to what i want, however it has too much guess work, you have to aim it click and its not a solution i am looking for because i already identified a range of colors, i simply need some way to input it for selection.


Need to be able to provide a range by entering specific HSB values or at least have a slider to select range, in this particular instance between cyan and blue, because unlike this example next time i might be selecting color that does not fully fall into pre-defined ranges, e.g. range of colors between red & blue.


Please don't offer "magic wand", its has too much guess work, need to be able to specify actual color range to select to later convert to layer mask.

I know there are easier ways for example above, however its just an example, i need to find answer as there are other uses of this "color range selection technique" that are valuable for me.

 

[IamSam]

Sorry...........did not understand with my first post.

If you are trying to target specific color ranges, see if this works.

As an extreme example, I used the above described method to target a specific color range and change the color with a clipped H&S adj layer and colorize.

 

[PutinHuilo]

Sorry...........did not understand with my first post.

If you are trying to target specific color ranges, see if this works.

This this is what i need, however without "manual labor"

In other words rather than using color picker tool i want to be able to provide numeric range or have slider (like in bottom of Hue Saturation windows) that can set boundaries of color range i am selecting.

Perhaps there is a plugin that allows this?

 

[PutinHuilo]

Pardon me, was not clear in description of my initial request.

From following gradient image i need to make selection of all colors in range from HUE 50° to 120° and create layer mask based on this selection.

Can not use Color Range tool because this is only example image, real photos will have colors spread randomly all over the image and no way i can use color picker to find them, so i need ability to type in HUE range from 50° to 120° in some box or use slider to select.

Are there any built in Photoshop tools that will allow me to do it or i need to use script / plugin?


Attaching image for convenience.

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @PutinHuilo

I am sure there are addins to do the job you desire yet did not research what was available.
This can be done in PS with a couple pushups (just made this up btw).

The short of the images below is that you convert a copy of the image to HSB with the Filter > Other > HSB/HSL and convert to either HSB or HSL.
Isolate the Red channel which creates a pure Hue map expressed in graytone
The use the Color Range command with the midtone selection and select the range of the Hue graytone map to create the Hue range selection.
That selection can be applied to the original image and you have your Hue range selection.

Here are the details
First here is the original image and a copied Layer


Here are the settings I used to convert to HSB using the HSB/HSL filter:



Here is the image after applying the HSB filter to the copy of the original:


There are several ways to do this yet found the most reliable way was to also add a color mixer adjustment Layer set as follows to isolate the Red (Hue) channel:



Here is the resulting Hue map in grayscale:


I merged down so the Hue graytone map was on one Layer:



How I use the Color Range Tool.
One needs to convert the Hue angle 0 to 360 to a graytone range of 255 to put in the right numbers (if you need help with this let me know):


Here is the resulting selection:



Turning off visibility of the Hue gray tone Layer shows the selected color range on the color gradient:


I believe this achieved your desired result and could be put into an Action.
John Wheeler

ADDED NOTE: Doing this process on JPEGs may be less than satisfying because JPEG compression hides its compression in the color channels so you may get some blockiness. Not a limitiation of the procedure, just that the color component of JPEGs is blocky. FYI

 

[PutinHuilo]

Thank you, this definitely works however i was looking for something more straight forward without need to jump trough so many hoops.

I find that after HSB conversion can also copy contents of Red channel into layer will provide HUE map without filter, i did not measure if its as reliable though.