uniform multicolor image preserving shadows

[taita87]

Hi guys, I am wondering if there's a quick and precise way to solve my problem...

I have a F1 skin that I want to modify changing the colors and getting rid of sponsors...
I think the best way to do this is to have a white-black image in which I can add color where I want, and sure it would be easy unless...there are a lot of shadows I don't want to lose: you can see them throughout the image, at suspension level, main body, etc.

Is there a way (maybe not a 1 week work ) to preserve the shadows, while making the car all white (for example) for future dyeing?

thank you

 

[taita87]

this is what I got till now, pretty fast but as you can see I have a lot of blueish borders

 

[taita87]

I managed to match the original white color with the new "whitened" colors (previous green and orange).
There are 2 things left...the white borders between the real white and the old orange-green are still there...and there's an area where matching between green and white isn't successful (bottom of the white&Mackay sponsor)

 

[Zeealex]

is there any type of occlusion map for it? if it's got one, it should have the shadows still on it, and you should just be able to texture right over that.

 

[taita87]

is there any type of occlusion map for it? if it's got one, it should have the shadows still on it, and you should just be able to texture right over that.

The file is from a .dds file, but the mask is not related to the light shadows: