I just received a PM asking about this so I decided to make a 101.

A bike with lots of green reflecting in it will look strange when placed in certain other settings such as fire, etc.

Here's a bike with lots of green. See the air cleaner cover, brake pedal, down tubes, rocker cover,etc.

With the lasso tool I have selected a portion of this. (Look closely for the "marching ants.") This is easier after an extraction because the lasso can go way out into clear areas.




Next, below,I have simply desaturated the selected area. Image> Adjust> Desaturate.

Most pics of bikes will have blue chrome due to reflections from clouds or sky - even in the shade. Note the loss of blue, but the green is gone too.




Now, while still selected,I simply add back blue and cyan. There is usually a lot more cyan than blue.

Image> Adjust> Color Balance.

Note that I color matched the "timing/points" cover right behind the brake pedal. I did that by eye. If you are doing the whole bike you don't have to match - just stick with a combo of blue/cyan you like.

The green is gone from the selected areas, leaving the unselected areas to demo the difference.



Don't forget the tires. They will be either brown or green and will look new if this is done including adding the blue cast. See the 101 on removing grass from tires.

This can be done with the lasso tool in sections if you remember exactly how much blue and cyan you added back to the first selection and duplicate that.

Hope this helps someone.


Edit: It occured to me that I use this on leather and black paint, too at times. Here's the same bike. The oil tank is black as is the seat and both have green color in them. Here's the same technique.

I have in the past desaturated an entire black bike and added back the blue and re-colored the lights and reflectors. The lights and reflectors could be selected first and then the selection inverted.

The green selected:




After desaturating and adding back the blue/cyan:



Entire bike:





Edit again:

Ok, Right after I wrote this there was a request for a sig. The bike was all black and covered with green and brown reflections. The chrome was all green.

The tires were very brown and green.

Here below are two pics. Note in the original the fairing is brown and it has a brown shadow in it, right in the near side in front of the mirror.

I chopped the bike and then selected all and desaturated everything. Next I added the blue and cyan.

All that was left to do was select the turn signals (2) and the reflectors (2) and color them. Amber for me is 2 parts yellow and 1 part red.

This desat. and color was fast - fewer than 10 minutes I'd guess.

Here is the before and after; tire, chrome, paint, saddle, - all done.

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Why all the red X's. Would be nice to see this. maybe....

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OK, lol. I just put the pics back up. Sorry about that.

If you don't see them please do a hard refresh (ctrl+R.)

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JB in a case like the whole bike, would you need to deselect the areaes witht he reflectors or just do the whole layer once chopped?

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Sewerat's Chopping Projects

Well in the real world you'd have a chop and no background as you know.

I think you have two choices but other ideas will surely come forth.

1. Select everything except the painted tins (paint set) and then desat. and color. Then select the reflectors and colored lights and add back the color. It's red and yellow for amber of course.

2. After selecting everything, hold the alt key and lasso the lights and reflectors to delete from the selection.

It's amazing how few lights there usually are. Guys take them off the frame and rearstruts and sliders. People change to gray lenses which fits right in with my plans, lol. The bike is angled in such a way that you can see just part, etc. etc.

Remember, when you do this after a chop you select way out into the clear areas grabbing whatever. You don't have to be careful usually in the really black areas like the line between the seat and frame because those shadows usually don't have color.

I don't think I ever posted this grab, below. This is how easy it is. Remember I have selected the bike layer and the red layer is a throw-away.

After that rough select of all but the tins, I held the Alt key and grabbed the front turn signals and the rear strut reflector. That subtracted those. Look how rough it can be. I even went clear outside of the pic itself a couple of times. The end result will be plenty nice.

Remember too that if you make a mistake, hold the alt key to subtract as you lasso. Hold the Shift key to add. I held the alt key to lose the lights and the front fender. To me it was the quick way, as I know so far.

Of course if I missed something, I could make another grab and desat. and color it blue/cyan in a second process.

This is really fast and easy. This wouldn't take 5 minutes and believe me, if you put this bike with flames or something those green reflections will jump right out at you.

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