Color range selection + layer styles

Hello--
Help me if you can!
I have had it on good authority (my photoshop instructor) that color range selection hasn't been working correctly for some time.
I'm using CS2, version 9.0.2 on an IMac os X version 10.5.8.
I am often working with multiple layers that are not similar at all. When I have one layer active and do a color selection, it may also select the color range on inactive layers. Then, if I do a fill, for example, it may affect areas on other layers that were inadvertantly color selected. I know there are ways to ask photoshop to perform a function on all layers, but I don't see this as an option or setting with color range selection. I had started to assume it was sort of like crop, which affects all layers, but when I asked, my teacher says it should only be selecting/affecting the layer that is active.
I found I can deal with this by 'closing the eyes' (making non-visible) the other layers...but that is a hassle and sometimes hides exactly what I need to see.
Then noticed, just lately, that when I use a layer style, it is no longer showing up on my layer palette. Maybe I don't understand correctly, but I thought any layer style addition would show up on the palette under the name of that layer. If I happen to remember that a particular layer used a layer style, I can still click on the layer styles icon and alter it, but it isn't displaying on the layer palette any more--so I cannot toggle or discard the effect simply, and it is hard to know why a layer looks the way it does without that information.
Could be I'm corrupted and need to deinstall/reinstall? Is there something I'm missing about these functions , or something I accidentally changed? I would really appreciate any help or information.

Yes your instructor is wrong, it always selects visible pixels, and always has. You can however create a selection before you go into Color Range, and it will only work within that selection though.
If you want Color Range to work in precisely the same way as it always did in the old versions you need to make sure that you ..
• Highlight a non masked layer and
• Uncheck the somewhat bizarrely entitled "Localised Color Clusters" checkbox
The changes to Color Range happened a few versions ago, to my memory it was with CS4 . The main improvement was that they made it more powerful with the capability to produce better more refined selections. They also unfortunately made the daft mistake of making the command work DIFFERENTLY depending on whether you have a masked or a non masked layer selected. This is not very logical really because it just causes confusion, and doesn't really achieve anything constructive in my opinion. No one who knows what they are doing wants to modify an existing mask using Color Range.

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Removing a selection area from a color range selection...

I have an icon I am working with and I have used the color range selection tool to select the background however there are some pixels that were selected that are actually on the inside of the icon itself. I want to remove that selected area. I had do I remove the selected are inside the icon? What about adding pixels to the selection area? How would that be done?

Good day!
The shift- and alt-key usually allow Selection tools to be used to add or subract from an existing Selection.
Could you post the image itself?
Because I suspect in a case like this it would be bette to work with a Selection based on channel/s. Maybe as the basis for a Solid Color Layer.
Regards,
Pfaffenbichler

Color range selection preview

I'm at a new job with a new iMac (Mavericks 10.9.4) and CC. I like using the "color range" selection tool in Photoshop, but I cannot figure out how to make the selected area just show as a marquee area - I don't want it to show as White Matte/Black Matte, etc. - JUST as a marqueed area, with my 4c image still visible. Ideas?

I just have to ask - why?
Once you commit by pressing OK you get your marquee. But the purpose of the selection preview is to show you precisely what will be selected, and a marquee doesn't do that. It would defeat the whole purpose of a preview. This would be easier to answer if we knew what you're trying to do.

Color Range Selection using Lab values

Is there a way to select pixels in Photoshop based on given Lab values? I am using Select --> Color Range with a specified "fuzziness" threshold, but I'd rather make the selection based on specific Lab values instead of random pixels that I choose with my eye dropper. Is there a way to do this in Photoshop, or does anyone know of a plug-in that might do this?
Also, if I end up having to use the basic Color Range tool, I'd like to know what "fuzziness" means. I understand what it does (selects more or less colors based on the threshold around the point you choose with your eyedropper), but what is that based on? A color difference (delta E) value around that point maybe?
I am using Photoshop CS3 v10.0 on a Windows XP machine.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Ellen

It may be helpful to compare the Color Range command with the Magic Wand Tool. A Magic Wand "selection" is 100% opaque and all pixels outside its tolerannce have zero opacity. So the selected pixels are either totally selected or totally unselected. There is no partial selection.
Not so with the Color Range command. The pixel clicked establishes the "base" color. Whereever that exact color occurs in the image, it is totally selected (100% opaque). The degree to which other pixels are selected (their opacity) depends on the Fuzziness setting.
At zero Fuzziness, all pixels other than those with the base color are totally unselected (zero opacity). As the Fuzziness setting increases, pixels with values other than the base value begin to be selected, but not 100%. There is a bell-shaped (Gaussian) curve of opacity centered on the base value and dinminishing on either side of it.
The breadth of the Gaussian curve (let's define that as the color value difference between 50% opacity on the left and 50% opacity on the right is directly proportional (not equal to) the Fuzziness. Double the Fuzziness and you double the breadth. Marching ants appear at the 50% opacity point. But be careful interpreting this because with the Magic Wand, for example, the 50% opacity point occurs at the same point as zero and 100%, there being no gradation of opacity at the edge of a Magic Wand selection.
You need to be aware also that the Color Range command operates in each color channel and the deviation from base value is determined by the most restrictive of the three channels. If a pixel is within Fuzziness limits for one channel but not another, it doesn't pass muster. And, yes, CR uses Lab colors, but you need not be in Lab mode.

Using cs6, I've tried filling a selection that I've made using "select color range" but the new fill gets diffused and transparent in places

Is there a way of turning this "color range selection" into a normal selection?

Yes
With Color Range there can be stray partially selected pixels all over the place. It best to first make the color range selection and with the selection active switch to the rectangle marquee tool and hold the Alt or option key down and clean up the stray pixel by subtracting large rectangle areas. You will stall have partially select pixels in the area you want solid. You can use a trick I use when I work on layers mask. Layer Mask are grayscale channels. When you paint with Black and White with the brush blend mode set Overlay the white and black areas are protected. Only the gray partially select area will change. So You can save your cleaned up Color Range selection as an Alpha Channel and paint with white to turn the partially select pixels in the Alpha channel to fully selected.
To show how the overlay mode works I could just have saved the color selection as and Alpha channel. Switched to the Channels palette targeted the alpha and cleaned up the selection. I chose to show that overlay blend will even work in RGB mode when you paint Black and White.
After I cleaned up the stray pixels I added a an empty layer on top om the image and filled the selection with black then inverted the selection and filled with white to create a Black and white work layer. Grabbed a black paint brush set overlay mode and repeatedly brushed over the image and drove the gray pixels to black. View screen capture in a new browser tan ans scale it to actual pixels. This sits scale upload images poorly.

Select Color Range, fails v13.1.1 on Retina Display Mac

Is there a trick to getting the new Color Range selection function to work on a retina Mac Book Pro?
I am quite familiar with the color range selection in the previous version of Photoshop, and used it regularly. I've decided to try as simply as possible by using a flat image (no layers), and trying to select colors. I've increased the contrast in the image to make darks and lights much easier to pull out.
I've explored setting the sample size to point-sample up to 3x3, and 5x5. I've also set the resolution of my display to 2880 x 1800 (to reduce the possiblility of anti-aliasing problems).
It will not make any selection though, using the eye-dropper sample.
Using other options will work, such as Highlights, Shadows, Skin Tones, etc., but it won't do anything with Sampled Colors.

SO very glad I'm not the only one with this seemingly EXACT same issue.
System:
Photoshop CS6 via Creative Cloud membership.
Windows 7 Home Premium
16GB Ram
Issue:
Select > Color Range used to work perfectly before update 13.1.1
Now since the update 13.1.1 Color Range doesn't do jack properly. Selecting any color doesn't do anything. sometimes if I select a white it will act as though I've pulled out a gray.. but even one pixel difference will make it deselect. This only happens with Sampled Colors. All otehr color range preselections work as advertised. This would be great if I didn't need the precision afforded to me with Sampled Colors. This is mission critical to my daily work as a scren printing artist and have been unable to find a succesful workaround.
Is there at least a way (without having to uninstall/reinstall) to downgrade back to 13.0.x until this bug is found and fixed?

Photoshop CS3 Color Range Problem

I am having an issue with the color range selection tool in Photoshop CS3 on an iMac G5 running Snow Leopard.
I've been using this tool for years and it's always worked properly until now. It no longer selects the color I've picked with the eyedropper. The only time it works properly is when I set the image to grayscale mode. In any other mode, it selects erratically, like the image below. Those are clean rectangles I created with the paint bucket, so I'm not sure where the lines selected in the Color Range view are coming from. Adjusting
"Fuzziness" doesn't help. The image is set to 8bits. Any ideas?
I've tried using the color range on another computer with the same settings and it works fine.

Is the Eyedropper Tool set to Current Layer in the Options Bar?
If nothing else helps you can always try trashing the prefs (after making sure all customized presets like Actions, Patterns, Brushes etc. have been saved and making a note of the Preferences you’ve changed).

How do I select a color range like in Photoshop OR copy/move a layer into the mask of another layer?

Hi there,
I'm trialling Photoshop Elements and wanting to use a black and white (grey scale) layer that I've made as a mask in another layer and don't know how to do it in Elements. In Photoshop, I'd do this (there maybe a better way in PS to do it, but I haven't discovered it yet)...
Click the layer i've created that I intend to use as a mask
Select All
Copy
select layer that I want the mask to be applied to
click the Add Layer Mask button (at the bottom of the Layers window)
click the mask icon so it is highlighted (and the image isn't)
switch to Channels view
highlith the Layer Mask beneath the R,G,B layers and make it visible
Paste
make it invisible again
switch back to layers.
This works and retains the full range of transparency for semi transparency and soft edges of the mask etc.
Alternatively, I can select a Color Range, but that doesn't seem to be available in PS Elements.
So, how do I achieve the same result in PS Elements?
Thanks for your help
Jonno

Perfect! Thanks very much R_Kelly. That does exactly what I was hoping to do.
Cheers
Jonno

How do I superimpose a darkfield image on brightfield image and then chose color range from the darkfield and only keep what I selected in the color range?

Hi
In the previous version of photoshop I was able to superimpose images of brightfield and darkfield insitu hybridization. I would adjust both images to same size and resolution. The darkfield image I would change the hue saturation to red so that now all the brighspots appeared red. Then I would open a new photoshop image and then drag the brightfield first into the new panel and then drag the red darkfield image on the brightfield. So now you can only see the red dark field layer on the top, THen using range I would select the bright red spots on the dark field and press delete. This would keep all the dark red spots on the brightfield image and all the other dark spots from the dark filed would disappear. This way I would superimpose all the brightest red spots from the dark field image on the brightfield image and this way I would get red signals on the bluish brightfiled image. I am unable to do this using photoshop on CS6. I am pasting the darkfiled image on the brightfield image (rather than dragging them) . Then using range when I choose the color range and then hit delete button I am unable to clear the unwanted dark field sections. Can anybody tell me what I should do on the new Adobe photoshop 6 (64 bits).
Thanks

That question may be better answered with a goolge search. It not something most Photoshop users would be doing. More science then normal image processing.

Layer Style Palette Color Picker

In my layer style palette I don't have a box that is allowing me to change or choose the color.... how do I get that to show up?! It used to be there but now it is gone! I am attaching a screenshot of what I am seeing. I can't seem to figure out how to change the color from red! HELP!

Just select the Color Overlay option in the left hand menu as nicknal2 has suggested?
Here is a screenshot:

"Color Range" isn't even listed under "Select"?

"Color Range" isn't even listed under "Select"? I'm trying to isolate an image onto a white background, and the steps I'm following says
Select duplicated layer and go to Select > Color Range. Select white background with eye dropper and increase fuzziness to maximum amount.
BUT I don't even see that listed!

There's a clever trick to simulate it in PSE (credit to Douglas Nelson - third reply at http://www.clearps.com/photoshop-forum/index.php/m/283867/.
Select the color you want to select with eyedropper
Make a new solid color layer filled with the eyedropper color
Set the blending mode of that layer to Difference (everything in your original the color of your eyedropper color will now be black)
Use a Threshold adjustment layer to expand or contract the area to be selected.
Use magic wand (low tolerance, contiguous off) to select black areas
There's your color selection. You can hide or delete the layers created for this procedure as long as you don't deselect, and you'll still have your selection active.
To avoid accidental deselection, save the selection frequently.
Cheers,
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children
If this post or another user's post resolves the original issue, please mark the posts as correct and/or helpful accordingly. This helps other users with similar trouble get answers to their questions quicker. Thanks.

Select- Color Range- Results in Blue Screen (PC) (driver out of date)

I've been using the CS6 beta about two days. While experimenting with color range I experienced two consecutive blue screen crashes. The first time it happened,I was working with the color range selector and was replacing the selected areas with another color using the paint bucket. About the third time I attempted this, my PC blue screened. The second time, I opened a photo, went to Select>Color Range and got an immediate blue screen crash.
I then went back to CS5 and I've been playing with the same scenario with no apparent problems.
My PC is a store built computer. It consists of an MSI 990-FXA GD80 motherboard, an AMD Phenom 1100t CPU, Asus GTX550 Ti graphics card and 8 gig of RAM. It boots from a 60 gig SSD and my programs reside on a 500 gig hard drive. The OS is Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. CS6 is using the hard drive for its scratch disk and Photoshop is using 4339 mb of the 7232 mb of available RAM - I haven't changed that. I'm running CS6 as administrator because the way it installed, it would only run in that fashion.
One disappointment during the installation was CS6 made no attempt to read my preferences from the CS5 install. That may be covered in another post, I've not yet looked.
Please keep us informed as new betas are released, because I would like some time to work with this puppy before plunking down big bux for the upgrade. As it is now, I'm going back to CS5. I get mighty nervous when my super computer blue screens!
Gerry
gswetsky AT bellsouth DOT net

The GPU is often at root of issues like yours. I've had so many problems with Nvidia drivers for their gaming-oriented adapters (like yours) that I finally went with one of their workstation cards. I have a Quadro card with just enough RAM to make Photoshop happy. The workstation drivers are optimized for reliability, the consumer card drivers are optimized for gaming and that often means they're less stable and reliable with Photoshop.

Is it possible to change the color of a layer of a Customs CSS from an External Style sheet?

Hi,
I have sucessfully link External .css file to my HTML page and able to change the font size of the headlines and the paragraph.
What I am not able to do is to ADD the color my Custom CSS from the External sheet. I have difined the color attribute as a 'Advance'
and gave it the same name "#bigwraper" that is has in my HTML file.
Attached is the color outline of my 'Blank Layout' with colors?
Thank you.
Dreamer101.1

Hi Murray,
I am building a web site on which the entire content would be changed at least daily. The website would have similar design to www.Helium.com
The page will have CCS layout boxes in which different content would be pasted.
To re-phrase my question: I want to know how to change the color of a layer from an external style sheet?
Because my home page 'Sidebar' and colors would be the same for all page, only the content of different pages would be different. If I want to change a color of my web side pages, I need to learn how to do it in one spot through an External Style Sheet.
I am amble to link my external style sheet and to change H1 tag and to give it different colors. But I was not sucess with change the color of a layer on which my content sits around.
I took out the color from my HTML page and gave the same name to the layer in my External Style Sheet with the same color.
Hope my question and the reason I was able to clarify.
cheers,
Dreamer101.1

Photoshop CC crashes when selecting "Color Range"

Hi, my Photoshop CC crashes whenever I click on "Color Range" under "Select". It shows "Photoshop CC has stopped working".
It seems like no one I know can fix my problem. Can any kind souls out there who could advise if it's due to certain of my PC configurations, and how I could resolve this issue?
Thanks a million for reading!!

We can't know. You have not provided any system information or details about your document. Quite likely you simply have color profile or hardware acceleration issues, so update your graphics driver.
Mylenium

Selecting Color Balance adjustment layer brings up Levels adjustment layer

Ok, so, all of a sudden I cannot get a color balance adjustment layer to come up. Every time I do photoshop creates a levels layer. Selecting levels makes a levels layer. All of the other adjustment layers seem to be working normally. How do I fix this? I have a deadline and no time to be reinstalling photoshop.

Reinstalling the application seldom helps, and re-installing without trashing your preferences is futile as you end up right where you started.
I understand your frustrartion, but please remember that you are not addressing Adobe here in this user to user forum.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/419981?tstart=0
Excerpt from that link:
• Do not be abusive or aggressive in your tone
An aggressive or abusive sounding post will often evoke an aggressive or abusive and unhelpful reply
Remember, you are requesting help from other users, just like you, who are giving their time free of charge. No one is under any obligation to answer your question.
Thanks!

Color range selection + layer styles

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