looking for a better way to do this...

[angrypsycho]

hi,
i have this picture of the fall foliage, and i'm trying to change the colors of the leaves back to green again. so far i'm thinking of using a quick mask and painstakingly paint over each individual leaf until i get the precise selection that i want...and then adjust the color balance for that selection for the leaves. is there any other (better) way of doing this? i'm also thinking about using dodge and burn tool to get the alpha channel, but i'm not sure about how it is done.

[ngai draws]

I'm not totally sure, put perhaps playing around the with Hue + Saturation (Ctrl + u) would do the trick. The thing is, though, that that will edit the whole picture. You may want to shift+lasso the leaves first, then adjust the Hue and Saturation levels. Click the "colorize" checkbox, too, on the Hue + Saturatio window.

[Phil_The_Rodent]

Use a layer mask. This would make things much easier. You can start by duplicating your image layer, and either:

(a) finding a channel that has good contrast between the colour you want to change and the background (eg. RED might work for leaves), copying this channel and adjusting the levels and painting your mask right one it, and then Ctrl-clicking the channel, going back to RGB mode , clicking on your layer and applying a layer mask, and then Adjuting you Hue from there globally, or

(b) Make a selection using Select>Colour Range, and applying a layer mask with the selection. And then adjusting Hue globally.

Layer Masking is great in a case such as this, because you can paint in and out or fade your highlights as you see fit. If you paint with a white brush, your Hue will shift, Black and it will revert. Grey/soft brush will get you gradual changes... don;t have to worry about ever making mistakes here, or worrying about how many levels of UNDO you have...

[angrypsycho]

thanks for the responses...
i'm definately gonna try all of them and see which one works best.