In this tutorial, I show you how to change jewellery’s metal color using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
If you only have a yellow gold jewellery but you need a rose gold or white gold visions, A Hue/Saturation adjustment layer makes changing jewellery’s color easy, fast!
And because we change color using with an adjustment layer and save the file in PSD format. We can fine tuning the color any time if we want. You’ll still have the original version, with the original jewellery’s color, Even after we’re done.
I’ll be using Photoshop CS6, But the steps are fully compatible with Photoshop CC. I’ll use a yellow gold ring for an example to show you how to change yellow gold to rose gold step by step.
Let’s get started!
How To Change Jewellery Color In Photoshop (Step by Step)
Step 1: Open The Jewellery Photo By Photoshop
To open a new image from the Home Screen, click the Open button in the column along the left
This opens the File Explorer on a Windows PC or the Finder on a Mac. Navigate to the folder that holds your images, and then double-click on the photo to open it. I’ll open the yellow gold ring photo now.
Now we open the jewellery photo in photoshop and will change this jewellery color to rose gold color.
Step 2: Select The Pen Tool
To change the jewellery color without affecting the diamond and background, We have to make two exactly selection to separate the metal, diamond and background.
There are different tool to make selection in Photoshop, Lasso Tool, Quick Selection Tool, Pen Tool, etc.
But a professional jewellery retoucher usually use Pen tool to make selection. Because Pen tool can correctly define the outline the area you want to retouch.
Step 3: Draw A Clipping Path Around The Jewellery and Diamond
In my case, We will draw two paths for the jewellery. The first path for the ring to separate the ring with background, The second path for the diamond to separate the diamond with ring.
Click the create path icon and rename the path ‘ring’ in the Paths panel
Draw a path around the ring. Making the path close to the ring and smooth.
Click again the create path icon and rename the path ‘diamond’ in the Paths panel . Then draw a path around the diamond.
Step 4: Convert Ring Paths To Selection
To convert the path we made to selection, We click Load Path As A button at the bottom of the Paths panel.
To soften the edges of selection that we create by the path, We use the feathering action. Choose Select > Modify > Feather. In the dialog box that appears, enter a Tolerance value. In this case, I enter 1.0.
Enter 1.0 value in the feather dialog box
Step 5: Add A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer
To change jewellery color, we’ll use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer by the selection we just made.
Making sure the selection is action. In bottom of the Layers panel, click the New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon.
Choose Hue/Saturation from the list
Step 6: Select The “YELLOW” PANEL
The controls and options for the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer appear in Photoshop’s Properties panel.
Since most color detail is yellow in this photo. So we will ONLY choose and make change of yellow color.
In the Properties panel, choose a YELLOW color from the menu.
Step 7: Change Yellow Gold Color With Draging The Hue Slider
To change jewellery color from yellow gold to rose gold. We drag the Hue slider. From left to right cycles you will see all the colors, moving from red on the far left to oranges and yellows, greens, blues, magentas.
You’ll see the jewellery color changing in the image as you drag the slider. I’ll set my Hue value to around -21 for a rose gold color,
Here’s what the jewellery color looks like so far. The color is too intense and not natural, So we’ll fix that next.
Step 8: Lower The Saturation Of The New Color
Once you’ve change a rose gold color with the Hue slider, drag the Saturation slider to the left to lower the intensity until the color looks more natural.
In this case, We set A Saturation value of between 10 and 15 usually works well:
The compare result after lowering the saturation, The rose gold color now looks less intense and more natural.
Step 9: Change The Blend Mode To Color
In the Layers panel, above Background layer is the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer sits. The adjustment layer’s blend mode is set to Normal, it means that it’s affecting not only the color of the jewellery but also the brightness.
To protect the original brightness. You can select the blend mode from Normal to Color, It means we only affect the jewellery color
The difference can be subtle, but you should see more of the original detail in the photo after switching to the Color blend mode.
In my case , the jewellery now appear brighter than they set with Normal mode.
Step 10: Select The Layer Mask
Layer masking is a useful way to hide part of a layer. This gives you more editing flexibility when you want to remove or change part of the adjustment layer.
You can add black or white to the layer mask. Black on a layer mask hides the layer that contains the mask, White on a layer mask shows the layer that contains the mask.
You will notice the diamond’s was a little pink when we changing the jewellery metal to rose color.
To make the diamond original color back, we can select the layer mask, then fill the diamond areas with black color to high the adjustment layer. It means those areas are still showing their original color.
Step 11: Select diamond Path and convert to selection
Then we turn to the Paths panel and Select the diamond path we made before. We click the Load Path As A Selection button at the bottom of the Paths panel.
To soften the edges of selection that create by the path, Choose Select > Modify > Feather. In the dialog box that appears, I enter 1.0 again
Step 12: Set Your Foreground Color To Black
To turn back the original color for the diamond, We need to fill the select we made for diamond with black.
Press the letter D on your keyboard to reset the Foreground and Background colors to their defaults. This will set your Foreground color to white and the Background color to black.
Then press the letter X on your keyboard to swap the colors, making your Foreground color to black.
Step 13: Fill The Diamond Selection With Black
Turn to the Layers panel again, Making sure the diamond selection is active.
Open Edit > Fill, In the dialog box, under Contents, select to fill with the foreground color.
The diamond turn back to original color now.
Step 14: Save The Image In Psd Format
if you are satisfied with the rose gold color now. You will save the images to PSD format.
PSD is a proprietary file that can keep the adjustment Layer to work with after the file has been saved. By this way, you can change jewelley color again in the future if you want.
Select File > Save As. dialog box will appear. Type the desired file name, then choose a location for the file. Click the Format menu, then choose the desired file format. In our example, we’ll save this image as a PSD file
And there we DONE it! That’s how to easily change jewellery color in a jewellery photo using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop!
Further Retouch For The Jewellery
But if we need this photo to be more professional looks. We have to do further retouch for it after change jewellery color.
First I will remove the holding wax under the ring. Learn how to remove jewellery holding wax . Then i will adjust the diamond color and light. Learn how to adjust diamond color. and Clean the dust and flaws.
Final I will make the background to white and add a real shadow for the jewellery.
Here is the final effect after further retouching
