Change color of subject

BrendaAnn

I am indoors and want to take a picture of a black sweater, only I want it to take it as a white sweater. How in the world do you do that? Thanks for any advice.

bruto

I believe Photoshop and Photoshop CS offer a color replacement function in which you basically choose a color and paint it over the one you intend to replace.

There is also a pretty powerful freeware program called The Gimp, which does many of the same things, though its interface can be somewhat tricky at times, and I did find the following page that suggests how you might do it:

(see here)

BrendaAnn

But the photographer who is teaching me, clicks the shutter button and on the screen is a picture of a WHITE sweater that was originally black. I have purchased Canon EOS for dummies, and gotten nowhere. I am about to go to youtube and see what they can offer. Thanks for your reply.

bruto

I suggest that the easiest thing here would be to ask the person teaching you what he is doing. If it's something that does not require post processing, and assuming that the camera is not taking infrared photographs, I do not know what it might be. At least on the Nikon I use there is no option for color reversal or selective color in shooting, and those in post do not do quite what is called for.

BrendaAnn

Bruto, you have no idea how much your help means to me. I bought this Canon EOS Rebel T5/1200D two years ago, with no idea how to even turn it off and on. After keeping it in the closet for a year, I took a course last winter, and learned absolutely nothing. I went to a buy, sell and trade sight where I live and asked if anyone could help me use this machine. I got my replies and have been taking private lessons since Nov. 1, 2015. I have taken some "amazing" pictures according to Kyle, but I want "amazing plus". I have learned a little about editing also and like that Kyle says my camera will do anything. I don't want "simple" pictures, but to start, yes, I am thrilled with them. Is it okay if I give you my email address and we could perhaps communicate on what is going on with my classes? Thanks again Bruto.

bruto

I'm not sure how much I can contribute that is Canon specific, and at the moment, I am pretty busy and away from home with family matters brewing for a while. I hope I can continue with at least some advice here, but I hesitate to interfere with someone else's ideas on how to go about things.

My main advice at this point would be to concentrate on training your eye and your sense of composition to capture what you really want to see, and for this the main thing is to practice a lot and learn how the two dimensional image you get from a camera differs from what your much more versatile eye sees. Our vision is very good at editing out clutter and ignoring things that are in the field, and when we take a picture, we often need to remove in the image much of what our brains remove from our sight without our even realizing it, and to provide organization of what is there, that we don't realize our brains are doing.

By the way, I do read that Canon (unlike Nikon) does offer what it calls "color accent" in shooting, which Nikon offers only in post. In this option, you choose one color that will be highlighted, and all others will be rendered as black and white. If you ever saw the movie "Schindler's List", this is the effect used in which, although the film is entirely in black and white, there are some scenes in which a girl's red coat is conspicuously colored. It's a gimmick that can be fun to try, but hard to work well without becoming a cliche.

Some point and shoot cameras also include an option called "color swap", which looks just like what you are looking for, but I don't think it exists on DSLR's, at least currently. In this option, you select one specific color and the color it is to be replaced with. All others are left as is. It's not available at least in my Nikon, or any as far as I know.

There is also a set of firmware modifications for Canons made by a company called "Magic Lantern", and it's possible that these include color swapping.

BrendaAnn

I would not consider your words as interrupting what I am learning. I don't know any other people who are doing photography is all. I am very interested in learning about my camera and the functions it will do. I am an old lady, young at heart and willing to try new things. I suppose the reason I asked about my email address is you replied to my question and I would like to share my journey with you, but if you are busy I can certainly understand. Thanks again Bruto. I just went to Color accent and read a bit, but is now well after midnight, so nap time.

PBked

Hi @BRENDAANN and @BRUTO,
I agree with Bruto. The only way you can swap colors with your camera is to download and install "Magic Lantern". Personally, I would not do it. Most of what Lantern achieves can be done with a good photo editor in post. Even if you manage to install Lantern in your camera without corrupting it, I can tell you now that no Canon dealer would touch your camera if it were ever to go wrong. The risk is yours!
PBked

BrendaAnn

Hi PBKED and BRUTO. I have spent nearly a week trying to make this sweater turn white and finally I sent a text to the fellow helping me, only to get a reply that reads "It is impossible to do". I am a very visual person, only a little stubborn, and very well focused. At the ripe age of late 60's I was not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry when I read his response. I decided laughing is the more positive way to look at this situation, so I did. This week I have learned an awful lot about white balance though. Kyle (my teacher) will be here tomorrow and we will proceed with lessons and this young at heart ole' gal will keep my brain working. Thanks for all of your help. I refuse to download anything onto my computer or camera that may damage them. I have now hung a white sweater where the black one was and took a shot of that. Hope you have a good night, and once again thanks.

bruto

I think you are probably wise not to spend too much time on this, but if you really do want to master this obscure skill, I am pretty sure you can do it in Gimp with some practice. It is possible to download a copy of Gimp which is entirely portable, I think - that is, you can put it on a memory stick or the like, and it does not inhabit your computer at all. There are a number of rather nice portable programs which don't invade the registry, among them the viewing and converting program "Irfanview", which is very handy for the most basic operations of resizing, changing file types, and viewing pictures. It has only the most minimal processing capability, but it is very nice as a default viewer for multiple file types.

I'm away from home and somewhat hurried at the moment, but if you do a Google search for portable programs, or portable installation of "the Gimp" you might find something. It's a pretty powerful program with many of the same features as Photoshop, except that it's free. It takes a fair amount of work to learn it, but it does work.

BrendaAnn

Like I said earlier, I won't download anything that I think will even put dust into my computer.mKyle will be here tonight and I am happy with the editing program I have and for now will stick to that and the basics of camera shooting. There is a crane that is up and running and decorated a block from me so I went out at 7:00am and got a couple of good shots of that. Then the traffic going south on one of the busiest streets was getting busy so I went over and took a couple of shots of tail lights. So, so far this morning I am very happy, knowing that the sweater change of color is impossible to do just with taking a picture of it.Have a good day, and if you are in USA, Happy Thanksgiving.

BrendaAnn

Hi BRUTO AND PBKED, I have been practicing using my tripod at night and having a fun time doing it. First time was last night for an hour and a half. I hope your photography is going well for you. Have a good day.