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Need to create 215 Colour Variations of a product!


TheoKondak

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Hello to the community! I am Theo and i am working on a new website. We are going to be selling bikes, and its going to be customizable bikes. So, one of the customizations is for the customer to be able to select among some preselected colours or among RAL Colour pallete. Since its impossible to do a photoshoot for all the available colours, the job has to be done in photoshop. Now, is there any technique that will make this a tad easier that it sounds?

I've seen some techniques involving selection based on colour, but i am not sure that this path will be the best to follow.

Thanks,
Theo!
 
Have you got and example of the image? An option could be the "replace colour" option under the image / adjustments menu.

Cheers

John
 
Any part of a bicycle can be isolated with a layer mask.
Screen Shot 2016-11-08 at 10.44.57 AM.png

With the addition of a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer (or something similar) clipped to the isolated (layer masked) layer, blending mode set to multiply, and you can change the bikes color with just a few adjustments.
It helps if the original bike is white.
Screen Shot 2016-11-08 at 10.45.15 AM.png

Screen Shot 2016-11-08 at 10.45.51 AM.png

Screen Shot 2016-11-08 at 10.46.53 AM.png

Screen Shot 2016-11-08 at 10.47.10 AM.png
 
Have you got and example of the image? An option could be the "replace colour" option under the image / adjustments menu.

Cheers

John

Currently we have some low quality pictures of the bikes, but we intend to do a photo shooting. I will be the photographer, and we got some pilot lights. Possibly we can get some white background, or black background in case the bike is white as suggested by IamSam. One of the main problem is that we have to achieve good colour accuracy, since we will be based on an existing colour pallete ( http://www.ralcolor.com/ ).




Any part of a bicycle can be isolated with a layer mask.


With the addition of a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer (or something similar) clipped to the isolated (layer masked) layer, blending mode set to multiply, and you can change the bikes color with just a few adjustments.
It helps if the original bike is white.

Thats something i already had in mind. What troubles me is the colour accuracy we can achieve with this method. To be honest, i am not familiar with advanced photoshop techniques and neither with the Hue Satuation Adjustments. Can these tuned to replicate accurate colour values, or we have to work approximately?
 
TheoKondak said:
Can these tuned to replicate accurate colour values, or we have to work approximately?
I believe they can. It will take a little work though.

I recently described a technique I used to (closely) match a Pantone Color HERE, using a Curves adjustment layer.

Exact color matching is hard to accomplish.
 
...Exact color matching is hard to accomplish...
...and isn't as critical as you may think.

If this is for a website then you have to take into consideration that the end user probably will not be viewing this on a colour calibrated device.

Furthermore, each 'browser' used may not have its colour space set correctly....I mean who does that unless you know about it?

I wouldn't be too particular about getting colours absolutely spot on.....the chances of anyone ever seeing them as you intended is minimal.

You would probably be better off just having the colours in a swatch instead of trying to apply them to an image.

I know that's not the ideal but its simple, practical, it works, and if people don't have the intelligence to understand there may be slight colour difference in the what they see and what they get, then it only takes a small declaration to be added to the page in plain text to the fact.

(Look at a well known auction site....you'll see this declaration everywhere!)

You could still do this if you go ahead with the complex image idea but I wouldn't waste time trying to get it exact....as close as possible would be more than adequate.

Use your time efficiently.

Just my 2¢.

Regards.
MrToM.
 
Last edited:
I believe they can. It will take a little work though.

I recently described a technique I used to (closely) match a Pantone Color HERE, using a Curves adjustment layer.

Exact color matching is hard to accomplish.

Thank you very much! I will have a look at your guide. I feel rusty when it comes to photoshop, so some new ideas and techniques will defenately fix this!


...and isn't as critical as you may think.

If this is for a website then you have to take into consideration that the end user probably will not be viewing this on a colour calibrated device.

.....

Use your time efficiently.

Just my 2¢.

Regards.
MrToM.

Yes, you might be right on that. Screens are not accurate after all. My supervisor agreed on that too, so i guess we will proceed with not 100% accurate colours.


I will come back with results. One of these days we will do the photo shooting. By the way we don't have a black background. We will use a green screen instead. White Bike + Green Screen. I believe it will be good enough.
 
...White Bike + Green Screen. I believe it will be good enough.
...and create a whole new bunch of problems if you are not careful.

As you said...White Bike + Green Screen... do you foresee any issues there?

What comes to my mind is 'bounce' off the screen onto the bike....even reflections could be a problem.

If you choose to colour the image then having a Green screen could mean you also end up with a Green bike.....what colour would best pick up a Green bounce....white.

Editing the colour afterwards will be difficult enough but having a Green cast over the whole thing is just adding to your workflow.

You may get away with this if you have the screen far enough away from the bike to reduce the effect but you'll still have to consider the fact that shiny painted tubes will reflect anything behind them regardless.....it's the problem with round things.

You need to carefully choose your choice of bike / screen colours before you start anything....it could be the difference between a quick 3 hour edit and a slow 3 week slog.

Regards.
MrToM.
 
MrToM - Much of your advice in this thread (eg, problems with green screens, uncalibrated displays, etc.) is correct, but I have to take issue with two of your points.

...and isn't as critical as you may think.
... snip ...
... I wouldn't be too particular about getting colours absolutely spot on.....
...but I wouldn't waste time trying to get it exact....as close as possible would be more than adequate.

I’m sorry, but in my opinion, the above comments are at complete variance with standard industry practice. The OP is exactly right in his quest for color accuracy in advertising.

In fact, there are a lot of very well paid product photographers who would probably even chuckle at the above quotation because the end result of other photographers and graphic artists not paying close attention to color is exactly what drives serious advertising customers (i.e., not the low end shops on the bay of E's) right into their arms, LOL. If you don't have experience in this field, and have not had endless discussions on this topic with editors, art directors, product specialists, etc., you simply don't realize how important accurate colors are in the advertising community.

For example, the desire for color accuracy in advertising is precisely what drove the development of things like the Pantone system and Adobe's color management system. Do you think such complicated procedures would have been developed and adopted if color wasn't of critical importance to Adobe's most important (pro) customers and the entire printing and paint industry?

To make matters worse, the need for color accuracy becomes even more important whenever well-known "memory" colors (e.g., skin, neutrals, blue sky, vegetation) are present alongside the color of the product. This is because the eye will subconsciously use the "memory colors" as references to evaluate the color of the product.

Imagine that there is a model standing next to a new model of car being advertised. It goes without saying that neutral colors better reproduce as neutral, and her skin color has to be spot on to be appealing to viewers. Now, if you want to use this base image to illustrate cars of other colors and the person who did the color changes on the car only did an approximate job, there are going to be tremendous repercussions when customers walk in to the dealership and say, "it just didn't look that way in the ad" and walk out. Manufacturers don't like it when sales worth tens of thousands of dollars walk out the door. They do everything in their power to avoid this.


...snip...
...Furthermore, each 'browser' used may not have its colour space set correctly....I mean who does that unless you know about it?...
If the image being viewed is sRGB, every popular browser will render it correctly. As far as I know, even if one intentionally tries to muck up the color settings in browsers like Firefox, these browsers will still always get sRGB right and send the correct numbers to the viewer's display system. The bottom line is that if the person doing the artwork knows what they are doing and delivers an sRGB product, there is absolutely no need for the buying public to be concerned about the color settings in browsers. Such settings only are of concern when non-sRGB color spaces are used, and this typically only is an issue to photographers and graphic artists.

Tom M
 
For me the case will be not so accurate colours since i have to deal with hudrends of colours and have 40ish days deadline, and still missing basic stuff like the black background etc. I understand that colour accuracy could be very important on other industried though, but i don't think that people will go away if they don't get the hue of the colour they liked from advertisement. Also there is a very good point, that monitors and screens are not calibrated, which means that they don't have good colour accuracy, so in the end the result will defer no-matter how hard the photographer tried, unless we talk about something printed of course.
 

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