How to color an image with a special color-layer under it?

[henrico]

Hi, this is my first post. I'm quite familiar with PS, but cannot figure out how to do this.
I want to color a photo of a brown leather shoe by switching on a color layer under it. I need this because a website script works with 2 separate images/layers. The top layer must be a transparent png of the image (the brown shoe) and the layer under this is a solid color (or more colors). This way you can color a shoe by clicking a button on the webpage.

I tried it using a white shoe on a layer, setting the opacity to 80%, than I used 'Select Color Range' to select the leather of the shoe, than I deleted this selection. This way the shoe keeps the leather look but is kind of transparent. A colored layer under it 'paints' the shoe while you still see the leather texture on it.
However, this method does not work well with a brown shoe. The texture is very hard to select.
I hope there is an other way to get this working? Remember, this needs to work outside Photoshop on a website script that can only show 2 layers on top of each other. If the script had a luminosity-layer than the problem was solved but it does not support luminosity...


Any help is appreciated!

 

[Dreamers]

Oo I'm not a website kind of thing, but to color any objects there are many tutorials out there.
I would actualy duplicate the layer (just in case of failure), select the shoe layer you want to edit, go to Menu/Image/Adjustments/Replace color....
From there select a good color inside of the brown from the shoe that covers almost all areas with the color picker (this is the area you want to keep). Then click on the lower square at the replacement section (colored) to define your new color you want.

Few questions for Henrico though:
What version of photoshop do you use?
Is this for commercial use?
Why use a 2 layer script thing, there got to be a way around this and even use a thousand different colored shoes? right?


Anyway, i'm not a script master so still I hope this helps a bit to your question for the shoe matters

Dreamers......

 

[prd]

you can play with the blanding mode also

 

[ibclare]

Henrico, I just want to show you what I did playing around with this. One thing you will need to do, IMO, is adjust the color you use as you work on it, so you get the tones you want. As prd said, you can just try different blend modes so that you maintain the suede texture. I'm attaching a screen capture so you can see what I did. As I mentioned, play with the original colors you paint over each section so that you end up with what you want since the blend modes will alter them.