best way to start a recolour?

[doctormax]

I wonder is this the best way to do it. What i done was open the different pages. then made a background colour that be easy to spot. Then a duplicate layer then start deleting the image bit by bit unitl i have the outlne shape of the different peices then start the recolour from there. i tried a different way but was not working to good and started doing it this way.

[cgutzmer]

Kinda depends on the model really... hopefully dave will chime in here

If I can get the original design files for you that helps sometimes :D
Chris

[airdave]

obviously if you have the original design files (and they are layered files) then you can open them in the same or similar design program and start editing the applicable colour layers.

many files are NOT in their original design files, so they each require different methods of dealing with.

if you have high res PDF files, you can usually open them in a "draw" or "design" program.
and if they have been saved with some layers intact (as a PDF) you can proceed almost as if they were original design files.

if they are lower quality PDF or maybe even just jpeg files, then you will have to bring them into a bitmap editing program and do your best to increase the quality of the image...theres a number of ways to do this.
You need to clean them up, remove moire and noise, re-pixelate, improve contrast and improve the overall quality as much as possible
and then finally mask and edit out the outlines.
In the end you just need to create a new "outline" layer - basically the parts outlining including the detail inner lines, fold and cut lines, pointers and parts numbers, etc.

This ends up being your "top" layer for new artwork.
With this you can create masks for lower colour and detail layers.
Then you just "colour" "repaint" "texture" the lower layers as necessary.

When its all done, you save each set of layers (pages) as a new jpeg or preferably a high quality PDF.
(Use a PDF program to join all the pages into one PDF file.)