Background Replacement Tutorials

Written by Steve Patterson. In a previous tutorial, we looked at the and why it’s one of the best tools in Photoshop for removing unwanted areas of an image. In this tutorial, we’ll learn all about the Color Replacement Tool and how it enables us to change the color of an object in a photo without a lot of fuss or hassle.

You may be wondering what on earth a tool for erasing backgrounds has to do with a tool for changing colors, and the answer is, a lot! Both of these tools use the exact same technology for detecting the pixels in the image that need to be changed. The only difference is that one of them deletes pixels entirely, the other simply changes their color. ike déjà vu.

The Color Replacement Tool is not the most professional way to change colors in an image and won’t always give you the results you need, but it usually works well for simple tasks and it’s such an easy tool to use that it’s worth giving it a try before moving on to more advanced and time consuming methods.

Selecting The Color Replacement Tool

The Color Replacement Tool was first introduced in Photoshop CS, and if you’re using Photoshop CS or CS2, you’ll find the Color Replacement Tool nested under the Healing Brush in the Tools palette. To access it, click and hold your mouse button down on the Healing Brush until a fly-out menu appears, then select the Color Replacement Tool from the menu.

In Photoshop CS3, Adobe changed things around a bit and moved the Color Replacement Tool in with the regular Brush Tool, so if you’re using Photoshop CS3 or CS4 (which is what I’m using here), click and hold your mouse button down on the Brush Tool, then select the Color Replacement Tool from the fly-out menu:

In Photoshop CS3 and CS4, the Color Replacement Tool is nested under the Brush Tool. In CS and CS2, it’s under the Healing Brush.