How to Use the Color Replacement Tool in Photoshop

Wondering how to use the color replacement tool in Photoshop? In this tutorial I’ll show you a few ways of using the color replacement tool!

What You’ll Learn in This Color Replacement Tool Photoshop Tutorial

• Where is the Color Replacement Tool in Photoshop?
• Color Replacement Tool Photoshop Settings
• How to Use the Color Replacement Brush

What You’ll Need

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial:

• Orange
• Slice of Orange

1. Where Is the Color Replacement Brush in Photoshop?

Step 1

You can replace colors in Photoshop with the Color Replacement Brush, which can be found in the Tools panel.

Step 2

If you don’t see the Color Replacement Tool in this panel, press the Edit Toolbar icon and select it here.

2. Color Replacement Tool Photoshop Settings

Step 1

Before using the Color Replacement Tool, you need to open the image and select the color which you would like to use.

Step 2

Now you can set the Size, Hardness, and Spacing of your Photoshop replace color brush.

Step 3

After that, you can select one of the Blending Modes: Color, Hue, Saturation, or Luminosity. The Color mode is a default setting which will change both the hue and the saturation. Hue settings will only affect the hue, Saturation will only affect the saturation, and the Luminosity will simply match the brightness of the original color to the brightness of the new color, while hue and saturation will be unaffected.

If you want to use Photoshop to replace one color with another, you should select Color, and in most cases this will be your best choice. 

You can take a look at some examples of using Photoshop to replace a color with brush blend modes below:

Step 4

The next setting is Sampling, and you can choose from three options: Continuous, Once, and Background Swatch.

Continuous Sampling will always look for the color you’re painting over, Once Sampling will follow the color from the initial point of your brush, and Background Swatch will only paint over the areas that match your Background Color.

Step 5

The Limits setting controls the “spread” of the colors. This option sets the boundary up to which it can affect the color. 

• Contiguous will affect only the sampled area of pixels where the crosshair of your brush is. It will not change the color of the adjacent areas that match the same color.
• Discontiguous will change the color of the adjoining areas with a matching sampled color up to the spread of the crosshair boundaries.
• Find Edges will find the edges in your image, and it will stop as it approaches the edge. The color change will affect only the edges.

In most cases, Contiguous will be the best option to use.

Step 6

The Tolerance setting controls how similar the color will be to your sampled color.

3. How to Use the Color Replacement Brush

So, to use Photoshop to replace one color with another, let’s set the following settings:

• Brush Size: 160
• Mode: Color
• Sampling: Continuous
• Limits: Contiguous
• Tolerance: 75%

After that, just paint over the areas where you want to change the color of your image.

Awesome Work: Today You’ve Learned How the Color Replacement Tool Works in Photoshop

We’ve discovered everything about how to use the color replacement tool in Photoshop! Photoshop’s color replacement brush is easy to use, and it can be a very handy tool for different purposes. Try different settings on your pictures to better understand which settings are best for your project. The practical use of Photoshop tools will help to consolidate your knowledge. Feel free to let us know how you use the color replacement tool in Photoshop.

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