With that selection active, now select to activate the masking channel,
Fill the selection with BLACK (Tap "D" to restore colors, then tap Option/Delete, or Alt/Delete to fill with the foreground color.)
You see the masked item turn black in the channel. In this fashion we touch up and mask out any other elements we do not want included in the color change -- there are some chrome items, and outlets, etc. You can also refine the selectioin with a small brush by painting BLACK to mask, or WHITE to reveal.
Once you're satisfied with your mask, you can
Click elsewhere in the Channels Palette to deselect the channel, and then
Return to the Layers Palette.
Now Choose: Select > Load Selection to restore the racing ants
Ready for Colorizing (Open the next screen)
Now, choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation
The Hue/Saturation dialog will appear where you can select the new color for the selection by sliding the HUE slider -- very carefully.
You'll note (in the next screen) that now our boat is the exact blue its supposed to be.
Apply the Lettering
With the boat the right color, now we open the lettering file -- already prepared as a GIF file -- and drag the lettered layer over into the Photoshop window. It arrives there on its own layer.
Using Photoshop's Transform tools, Perspective, Rotate, Scale and Distort, we're able to push and move the logo until it is in a convincing perspective to match the boat and the desired position for the client.
We've also given it a bit of transparency so it 'melds' better with the body of the boat, and we've grayed the color white a bit, since it's on the shadow side of the boat and pure white is too bright.
Once approved, we'll measure a feature of the boat to obtain scale -- from the cleat to the end of the railing is 44-inches, so that's the size we'll order. Now, we can upload the Illustrator outline file to the vinyl cutter who will cut the letters and apply a transfer carrier to install the lettering.
Since this logo is of the words fitting between the bars, a Port and Starbord version was created. Above you see the starbor version -- the port version puts the bars on the left so the image always looks like its in forward motion.
Since the outline selection of the color area was relatively simple, this entire process took less than twenty minutes to complete. But the process is the same no matter how complicated.
Make the selection
Create the Mask
For ongoing original content about Photoshop, painting, color and image retouching visit DTG Magazine's Photoshop Content areas at: www.Graphic-Design.com/Photoshop
from the Editor:
I was delighted that day back in 1989 when Peggy Killburn called to ask if I could handle one more speaker in my "Great Graphics Tips & Tricks" session scheduled for the 1990 Macworld Expo. "Yes" was my response to her request to add Russell Brown to my panel. After all, we loved Adobe's young "Illustrator" program, and were quite anxious to try out their upcoming new product called "Photoshop." After seeing his demo, I was convinced Photoshop would be big. So the next month we added "Photoshop Tips & Tricks" to our regular DTG Magazine uploads to Compuserve, GEnie and AOL. The rest is history.
I only regret that I didn't trademark the name.
Editor / Publisher: Photoshop Tips & Tricks, DTG Magazine.