This really should be possible

[Michael Palumbo]

I occasionally encounter a situation where I have a product or something in several photos that I want to have the same color. Is there some way to sample the color and click onto the product and PS would match it in the same way it produces a neutral gray when using the gray eyedropper in Curves or Levels. Could also apply to a skin tone. Is this possible?

[Phosphor]

This is one of the ways I do it:

Open the image with color you like.

Make sure your Info Palette is visible.

Select the Eyedropper Tool.

Look at the Options Bar, and set the sample size to 5 x 5. This will give you a good average.

Hold the SHIFT key, and you'll see that the cursor changes. This signifies that you're ready to lay down a Color Sampler. Find a good spot to sample the color you want, and click there. You may lay down up to 4 Color Samplers in each image.

Look at your Info Palette and you'll see that it has expanded to now include a pane (or panes) that displays the color component make-up of the spot (or spots) where you dropped a Color Sampler (or Samplers). In that pane you'll see a tiny little eyedropper icon, right below the "#1". Click and hold for a drop-down menu. Change the read-out to CMYK. This won't change the color-mode of your image, so don't worry about that. It just makes the following steps more intuitive.

Write down the values for C, M, Y, and K.

Open the second image in which you want to match the color.

Make an accurate selection of the areas you want to adjust. Save it as an Alpha Channel (Select---»Save Selection...New Channel) just to be on the safe side, and save your changes to the document.

Using the Eyedropper again, Shift-Click to drop a Color Sampler in the new image, in an area that is similar in brightness as the sampler in Image 1.

Change the readout of this new sampler to CMYK.

With your object still selected, go to "Image---»Adjustments---»Selective Color..."

Choose a color in the drop-down menu that is as close as possible to the color of the area you want to adjust.

Now, while you keep an eye on the Color Sampler pane in the Info Palette, adjust the sliders in the Selective Color dialogue. You'll see the numbers change in the Info Palette. The numbers to the left of the slashes (/) are the "before" readouts, the numbers to the right of the slashes are the "After" readouts.

Play around adjusting these Selective Color sliders until the "After" numbers for the second image Color Sampler match (or get really close to) the C, M, Y and K values you wrote down for the Color Sampler in the first image.

Sometimes you'll need to work the sliders for more than one of the Selective Color drop-down menu colors. I usually start with the drop-down choice of "Neutrals," because it often allows me to do most of the correction there...lot's of bang-for-the-buck. Also, you may need to make Selective Color adjustments, hit "OK" and then call the Selective Color dialogue up a second—perhaps even a third—time.

Just match the "After" numbers for Image 2 to the Before numbers that you wrote down fore Image 1.

There are other ways of doing this, but this is one of the easiest ways. Keep in mind that the changes you make are destructive (i.e.: not reversable after you change and close the document). Because I trust my abilities, I know what I can get away with, and I'm usually satisfied with the results. If you have any worries about making permanant changes, just duplicate the layer you want to work on so you can go back to the original color if you need to.

When you're finished, you remove the Color Samplers by again selecting the Eyedropper tool and SHIFT+ALT clicking (see the scissors cursor?) on the Color Sampler icon (s) in the image window.

I did that all from memory, so I hope I didn't leave anything important out of the steps. Questions? Comments? Just reply back to this thread and we'll take it from there. I know this seems like a long, complicated technique, but work through it a couple times and you'll see that it's really pretty simple.

[Thee_DarkOverLord]

Duotones could be what your after.

[Burton Ogden]

Michael,

Take a look at the Color Mechanic plug-in for Photoshop:

<http://www.dl-c.com/colormechanic/index.html>

-- Burton -- (not associated with the vendor of Color Mechanic)

[YrbkMgr]

Holy Moly Phosphor, nice work.

[JasonSmith]

....Or with your sampled color, a gradient map adjustment layer - based on that sampled color, may work in certain instances.

...Or a HSB adjustment - set to 'colorize'.

[Lawrence Hudetz]

Pretty good, Phoz.
I needed that Sunday when I had to match the colors of two different views of the same room. I wound up using the Info pallet but in RGB, and simply got a wall color close, then balanced it out by eye. The printouts look very good, and since only one image will be used, no problem.

[Phosphor]

Thanks for the props, you guys.

Gotta wonder if Mike is gonna return to see it.

[Kevin Connery]

Much of the steps Phosphor described can be automated using the options behind the gray picker. You can tell it what color to "make neutral" if you want by opening Curves or Levels, and double-clicking on the white-balance/gray eyedropper and then clicking on your target color (the middle of a forehead [avoiding specular highlights], the color of the blouse whose color you need to match, whatever). Then, when you use that eyedropper, it'll try to make whatever it's clicked on match that color (but not brightness).

(Just remember to reset it when you're done; that setting is used for most of the auto color correct tools, and it can mess things up if you forget.)

For complicated color matching, or when trying to make a red car into a green car, the use of the color samplers and various other tools is invaluable, but for simple stuff that's close-but-not-quite-identical, the one-click method works fine.

[Michael Palumbo]

Thanks. I am going to copy your method and print it out to put in my PS notes. It goes into some terriroty that I have very little experience so it will be a little of a new experience, but I'm looking for some new techniques. I'll let you know how it goes.

Mike