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recoloring

Okay, this is going to be a really quick guide on re-coloring. I'm actively practicing getting better at organizing my thoughts and explaining things but I didn't actually expect to make this into a guide. It was more of me seeing if It would work and it did, unfortunately I didn't take very many screenshots of the steps so I'll do my best to talk you through it.

(Let it be known there's still little pieces of skin I need to go over better, I see it, I'm sure you do too. Make sure you TAKE YOUR TIME doing something like this. )
Now you may be thinking, Cream, literally what was the need for this? Well, on my life long journey to slowly become my muse and strengthen that loving personality and mindset you need visual aids. Like a dream board haha. So I wanted to make a woc Thor comic re-color for a pfp. I think moving forward I'd color the skin both darker with warmer undertones because she's a little ghostly (on computer) but I still love her & I think the flatness of it works for the comic vibe.
This can work of recoloring hair, eye color, all that for non-cartoony face-claims.

Anyway, how did I do it?

STEP ONE: when you first open your photo I suggest turning it black or white to recolor. It helps a lot, you can use a b & w adjustment layer or a gradient mask. I used gradient mask because they were on my mind from the last thing I did in ps. The controls for this are LAYER > NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER > GRADIENT MAP . make sure they colors are black and white reverse it if it looks inside out.

STEP TWO: if you're changing the skin color I'd suggest you look up come skin color codes for photoshop, I used 8d5524. Go back and do the same thing, except this time you're making a fill layer , LAYERS > NEW FILL LAYER. MAKE SURE YOU'RE ON THE FILL LAYER AND NOT ANY MAIN LAYERS FOR EVERY STEP. ALSO USE THE ZOOM FOR ALL RE-COLORING YOU'RE DOING THE MAGNIFYING GLASS IS YOUR BEST FRIEND. With the black & white layer visible start going over her skin with the brush tool, take your time. If it isn't showing up make sure you have white as your color foreground or tinker with the color foreground and backgrounds until it's how you need it to be. I actually had to do all of these steps twice because my computer crashed and I didn't have a save file. Kinda rushed though this second time but seriously take your time. Tinker with the visual layer display ( not sure what to call it) the drop down where you can make it over lay, screen, so on and so forth. For her skin I used Linear burn to make it pop a bit more.

STEP THREE: you basically repeat this process a million times, LAYERS > NEW FILL LAYER . For her hair, the color is 0e0300 . You can do the hair manually or use the select tool. I did it manually because the select with brushes and fill layers is a pain is the entire ass. Like, all of it, all of the ass.If whatever hair you're trying to recolor is more straight forward and less extra and loopy to use the select I suggest you select the hair first then make the fill layer. For the hair I used hard light. This step took the longest, it's still not perfect but trust me, it gets to a point where you don't care if it's perfect. I debated just erasing the extra curls through her fingers because the tips were SUCH a pain tor re-color.

STEP FOUR: eyebrows and lips. I lasso'ed the eyebrows with the poly lasso tool, then fill layered it with the same hair color. for the lips I did that too but with a different dark reddish color and I broke it up into the upper and bottom lip. Color is 280604. After the skin and hair was done I could make the b & white layer not visible to do the rest. Make sure your flipping it on and off throughout all of this just in case you're missing anything and to see how it's looking

STEP FIVE: after that you're pretty much done but my girl was looking so pale and I didn't like it, so I make a new layer this time an adjustment layer for hues and saturation. Selected her skin because that's what I wanted to give more oumpf and I think I dragged it to 18+.

 I was going to recolor her eyes but I left them lavender for right now because i'm still undecided on that, I'm probably going to change the background color at some point to fit a new theme. Fee free to throw any psd's that look right on there but there you have it! A basic recolor tutorial. If you have any questions feel free to ask.