expert guide

Colour conversion

Michelle Powell

If an element of your photo doesn’t match the rest of your layout, fear not! Michelle Powell explains why. . .

If you’re looking to match elements in your photos to the rest of your layout, then digitally altering the colour of an element and changing it to a colour that suits is ideal. Most photo manipulation software will allow you to do this, and it’s a very useful trick to master! These photos of Christian burning some garden rubbish were perfect with the red, black and orange fire-themed papers. Everything looked good except for that one clashing colour – the bright blue bucket! I used Photoshop Elements to replace its colour and make it orange to tone in with the rest of the page.

Twisted Fire Starter by Michelle Powell

Materials

•Patterned cardstock:Junkitz •Cardstock:Bazzill •Glitter:Art Glittering System •Software:Photoshop Elements

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Select your photos and choose papers by matching them up to the general colour scheme, without worrying about the odd accent colour.

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Open your photo in Photoshop Elements and choose Enhance/Adjust Colour/Replace Colour. Use the pipette tool to select the area of the photo that you want to change the colour of – it will go white in the Replace Colour box. Alter the fuzziness slider above until the entire image is evenly selected.

When the image only is shown in white, alter the Hue slider to change the colour. If you have multiple photos to change, make a note of this number so that you can match the shades up. The main image will show the changes – if you are happy with them, click OK. Print out your altered photos.