Changing hair color--or any color in a photo

[cyberqueen]

I've been trying to use the new region selection tools in Xara 9 to select a region of a photo and change the color inside the region. I first tried, perhaps facetiously, to change the hair color in the photo from graying to something darker. But having drawn a freehand region around most of the hair, I can't figure out how to make any change at all. I've included a section of the photo that shows the hair I'm trying to work on.

When I simply couldn't figure out how to deal with the hair, I tried to change the color of the jacket the person was wearing (not shown in uploaded photo). I struck out there, too. I'm clearly missing some key elements (or a key part of my brain ). I'd be most grateful for some help.

[gwpriester]

I think what would be more effective for the hair, as it is gray and you wish to take it back to when it was not gray, is using the Shape or the Freehand & Brush Tool, create a closed shape that overs all of the hair. To this shape, add a color, dark brown, for example, then apply a Stained Glass transparency. Adjust the slider until the color looks natural. A brown or sepia color may work better.

To make the color more realistic I cloned the brown and change the transparency to Linear.

[cyberqueen]

Gary, thanks so much for your prompt and very helpful reply. I would never have come up with this solution on my own! I'll definitely give it a try and report back.

[gwpriester]

And remember to add a touch of feathering to the shape to soften edges.

[cyberqueen]

And remember to add a touch of feathering to the shape to soften edges.

Gary, I'm afraid I didn't see your additional message until I logged on just now to report on my progress. I think your additional suggestion will prove very helpful, but I'm already pleased with what I've been able to do. For some reason, the Linear transparency setting didn't work for me as well as the Flat, but after just a few false starts, I began to see improvement, even when I moved back to trying a darker color more like the person's original shade.

MANY THANKS!!

[angelize]

In P&GD 9 you have a better tool, the background erase feature.

Step 1: clone your photo (ctrl+k) this creates a copy exactly on top of your original.
Step 2: use the page and layer gallery and click the eye icon next to the bottom photo (the original) this will hide it from view
Step 3: with your cloned photo selected use mask painter to mask the areas you want to keep zoom in and use a small brush on areas where the colours of the hair and background may not have a high contrast. (dont forget to mask eyebrows and any facial hair your subject may have.)
Step 4: select the eraser tool and erase a bit of the background. Make sure to erase over all the colours you want to remove and again any areas where the colours to be removed are similar to the colours to keep zoom in and get more acurate.
Step 5: click the erase background button and let Xara do it's magic!
Step 6: once the back ground has been erased un hide the original photo underneath and select the hair you just cropped out and you can use the photo tools to darken, it add saturation etc or use the colour editor and change contone colours. At the end if final touch ups are needed you can use the eraser with a high softness setting to fix any edges that might need it.

[steve.ledger]

or any color in a photo

As always, there's more ways than one to work with Xara Designer..

Please view ► Re-colouring part of a photo using the shape editor and hue changer.

[cyberqueen]

Thanks VERY much, angelize, for your detailed and helpful message. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks as if some of the details should be immensely useful not just for the specific task I asked about but for many others as well.

[cyberqueen]

As always, there's more ways than one to work with Xara Designer..

Please view ► Re-colouring part of a photo using the shape editor and hue changer.

Thanks very much, sledger, for referrng me to these instructions. I've now tried to follow them, but I'm afraid I'm doing something wrong. I clicked CTL-K to clone the photo. The instructions say to use the "shape editor." I'm not sure what is meant by this (the discussion of the "shape editor" tool in Help was not clear to me). I first tried the shape tool, but that didn't enable me to create an outline, so I switched to the shape painter tool. With that tool, I'm able to draw an outline around the part of the photo whose color I wish to change, though even using the smallest setting, the outline line is thicker than in the instructions. I'm not sure what it means when it says "select the photo and shape." I first tried simply to select the shape. I then pressed CTL-3, which supposedly leaves me with "the knocked out shape for recolouring." However, if I then try to separate the shape from the photo, it's the photo that moves, leaving me with what looks like a transparent shape (and the photo off to the side). The shape does not have any color, unlike the shape in the instructions. Moreover, if I try using the Hue control under Enhance, nothing happens in the shape. Sometimes, though, what happens is that the color in the photo changes and the rest of the photo also takes on a suggestion of the color.

I kept trying to get the shape that I had separated from the photo to be what is colored, but without success. At times, the somewhat enigmatic instructions on the status bar told me that nothing had been selected, and it also said something about the "marquee." I tried creating what I thought might be a marquee around the shape, but as soon as I then tried to use the Enhance/Hue tool, I was told nothing was selected.

I'm not sure whether you can identify what I'm doing wrong, but if you can, I'd be most grateful for some further advice.

[Big Frank]

why don't you just upload the photo so somebody can show you how to do it using your photo