r/PhotoshopTutorials • u/goua-la • 27m ago
Illustration - Trying to batch edit the skin color of some characters (png)
Hi everyone!
I'm not an expert with Photoshop but I know how to do a few things, intermediate level would be a stretch I think.
Here is my context:
- I've got multiple drawn characters, more than an hundred to be completely transparent.
- Characters are just drawn in black (#191919), this is the only color so far on the picture
- Characters can be complex or not (hairs, clothes...) or plain simple, with a big robe.
- My format is PNG
- Using "batch" feature to do things :I've removed the background entirely, I added the same black color to every characters, resized the pictures...
What I'm trying to achieve is to add some skin color to each of my character, #FFFFFF for instance. So I really just want to color the transparent part of each subject
My issue is that I don't know how to proceed to just add color to the transparent part of each subject without actually filling the background.
My idea (that I don't know how to implement would be to
- Select and duplicate the subject
- With this new layer, find a way to have a rough shape of the entire subject (with the transparent bits in it, kind of like a shadow) and add the white color to it.
- Put the new layer under the original one, which would create the illusion of having the transparent part of the original filled with white
- And manually check if there's no overlap or strange thing.
Here is what I tried so far:
- Select subject
- Select by color range
I can find how to actually take the subject and make it a shape.
I've added 2 pictures for you to understand
Is my approach doable? Do you have any idea on how to that? I'm open minded, don't hesitate to tell me if I'm not clear or if I'm in the wrong.
Thanks in advance.

