Changing white clothing or objects to any color requires more than basic adjustment layers. White lacks the color information that standard tools need, making this a challenging task for many photographers and designers.
This technique uses channel masking combined with overlay brush techniques to create precise selections that isolate white areas perfectly. The method produces natural-looking color changes while preserving all the original texture and detail.
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Practical Tips
These key techniques will help you achieve professional color transformations:
- Start with the blue channel for maximum contrast between white clothing and skin tones
- Use overlay brush mode when refining your layer mask - it automatically protects opposing tones
- Enhance contrast with levels before creating your selection to get cleaner mask edges
- Enable colorize in the hue/saturation adjustment layer before making color adjustments
- Lighter colors work better than very dark ones when starting from pure white
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