17

I have an image of a hand that I want to change the color of only the sleeve for:

enter image description here

I used the magic wand and it highlighted the area I wanted. However, when I open up the "Adjust Color" tool and slide the sliders, the adjustments affect the whole image and not just the highlighted / selected area.

I want to make changes only to the sleeve. Is this possible in preview?

enter image description here

bigpotato
  • 496
  • I would doubt it. that's a pretty advanced trick for what is essentially a 'viewer' only. – Tetsujin Aug 27 '16 at 19:20
  • @Tetsujin do you know of any alternative websites that could do this? – bigpotato Aug 27 '16 at 19:23
  • Websites? No. Photoshop could do it, fairly easily - maybe Gimp [freeware] could too – Tetsujin Aug 27 '16 at 19:27
  • 1
    You can use Preview to crop. If you crop that selection, it should ask you if you want to convert the file to a PNG because the new background will be transparent. You could then change the coloring on the newly cropped material. Here's the catch - you would then have to figure out how to merge the original file and the cropped & edited one. Without Photoshop, I'm not sure how to do that. – TMHahn Aug 27 '16 at 22:00

2 Answers2

18

Open the original image in Preview and carefully select the required portion to change. (the sleeve?) Do COPY then close the image. in Preview do a NEW FROM CLIPBOARD. Make your changes on this then COPY. Open the original and PASTE the changed selection onto this. Adjust the position as required...hope this works for you. It does for me:

Glorfindel
  • 4,057
Derek Hirst
  • 196
  • 1
    When you say "Make your changes on this", I assume you mean make your changes on the new image that is only the selected area, i.e. the image that is only the cuff. How do you do that? If the cuff is black how do you change it to green? What are the steps? Thanks. – KS_on_StackExchange May 23 '22 at 21:57
0

Courtesy of Greg M on StackExchange:

To change a portion of a picture's colour using the 'instant alpha' tool (the second tool from the left in Preview's Markup toolbar):

  1. Select the area with IA.
  2. Press delete. If asked to save as png click yes. This makes the original picture with the IA areas transparent.
  3. Select all (entire picture) and copy.
  4. On the original picture with the IA bits transparent, paint a rectangle of desired colour over all the IA areas ie big enough to cover all the areas you want to change.
  5. Click paste. This puts back in the picture with transparent IA areas over the colour background. Boom.
agarza
  • 2,274
Me Martin Winlow
  • 1