Learning Photoshop ...: Match Color

Hello!

Browsing the Net I found a more precise way to replace colors. And easier. At least from my point of view :)
Until now I was replacing colors using Image – Adjustments – Replace color.

I took two photos from sxc.hu (thanks to Bina Sveda for the photo with the girl in blue shirt) and I started to match the red color from the first photo with the blue one from the second photo using the Match Color command.

First thing to do when you start working on a image in Photoshop is to duplicate the background layer, and so you don’t have to worry about damaging the original photo. So don’t forget to do that..(Ctrl + J)

Choose a selection tool (Lasso tool or Pen tool, I used the second one) and start selecting the red shirt.

Select the part above the hands, close the path and then select the other one.

After you close that too, right-click on the image and choose Make selection.

Now go to the other picture, the one with the girl in blue shirt and just make a random selection somewhere on the shirt.

Return to the first photo and make sure you have the duplicated layer selected.

Then go to Image – Adjustments – Match color :

The Match Color dialog box appears:

On top you have Destination image – which is the current image you are in (with the girl in red – in other words : the image containing the colors you want to change) and you have to select from the bottom – Image statistics, the source – from where the colors will be imported.

The following options Luminance, Color Intensity, Fade, and Neutralize are the tricky part :)

They are not used to adjust the original color of the destination image. From here you can adjust the output color. But that is not working so well in some cases. If the object is a flat one, it’s ok, but in my image I need more work because I need to have more contrast in the color of the shirt. Using the options above I can only make the entire shirt brighter or darker.
In order to darken the shadows and brighten the highlights of her shirt, I'm going to use the adjustment layer. (hold Alt key and click on the icon in the image )