Changing the colour of a train

[brandon2k1]

Hi All

I am reasonably new to photoshop but am wanting to get a lot better! I am quite interested in being able to change the colours/livery of objects in photos most notably trains due to this being one of my main interests.

I have an image of a train and I want to edit the livery but keep an element of realism.so It doesn't just look drawn like a cartoon. I have made an attempt at this but I am not massively happy with the results. I have uploaded both a copy of the original image and a copy of my amended image. My main problem is the lack of realism, because I am trying to go from a very light colour to quite a dark blue I seem to lose a lot of the detail from the original image.

I have also uploaded an image of the sort of thing I would like to achieve. The person who has done this makes a really good job of them and I would love to be able to achieve similar results.

The way I have created my image is simply but creating adjustment layers for hue and saturation and levels and played with the settings until I get something like.

Does anyone have any tips on how I can make a better attempt at changing to colour so it retains an element of realism?

Original Image
My attempt
Quality I would like to achieve


Thanks In advance.

Chris.

 

[MrToM]

It looks as if you are 99% there.....did you use the 'Colorize' checkbox in the Hue / Saturation Adjustment layer?

If you did but it still doesn't look right then try a different blend mode.

I don't think you need to do much....just a final 'tweak' to get it better.

Regards.
MrTom.

EDIT:
On second thoughts scrub that....its probably what you've done already anyway.

You could try using the Channel Mixer instead but its tricky to get right and may need several layers to build up the colour rather than just one...

Note the front end isn't quite right with just one go at it...


Using NON-colorize and targeting just the red and yellow (each with its own mask)...

 

[IamSam]

This looks familiar..............where have I seen this? I know I worked on this project before.

 

[brandon2k1]

Thanks MrTom. Had pretty much tried your first suggestion. But i like the look of the channel mixer so gonna give that a go and see if it improves my results.

IamSam, not sure who produced the 3rd image I posted I just found it on a website and borrowed it to show the kind of quality i would like to be able to achieve! Maybe you worked on it! If you did good effort!

Thanks for the comments.

 

[MrToM]

...Thanks MrTom. Had pretty much tried your first suggestion...

No worries.....although I didn't really add much into the mix to be honest.

Good luck with the channel mixer.

Regards.
MrTom.