Giving the car color
This step is a bit hard in the beginning, but after this, changing the color is really easy. What you need to do first is make an outline of the bodywork of the car you want to paint. What I always do is just grab my Pen-Tool, outline the parts I want to paint, and fill them with White on a new layer.
Then you can always lock that layer or hide it and select it for an empty selection to fill it with a color. Make sure you do this. I recommend the Pen-Tool for those hard to reach area's and the higher usability. The learning-curve may be high, but in the end, it really pays off.
Once you have that White layer, press Ctrl+J to duplicate it and hide the first one. Set the second one to Color, Hue or Saturation. This will change the color to black and white. It's much easier to change the color of a grey car, since it has no color. If you would change the color of a red car, you will always stick with the redness.
Variations
Then, you simply keep on selecting the White layer to get the selection and fill this with a desired color. Then change the blending-mode to Multiply or Overlay if you want a special color.
To select the White layer, hold Ctrl and click on the thumbnail of the layer. In the images below you can see a few variations which I made.
First off, a simple Purple layer set to Multiply will make the car nice and Purple. Changing the layer to Overlay, duplicating it, changing it to Red and erasing the top half, will get you the second image.
You can also make it a little more feminine by adding some silky White. Blue and Green can also be used to make a nice Turqoise transition.
I ofcourse, will keep it in "MickM-Green", which over the years has almost become a real color...
Window-Tinting
Make a new layer and grab the Pen-Tool. Trace the windows and fill the selection on a new layer with Black. To darken the windows, simply lower the opacity to a desired setting. Again, if you want a different color, instead of Black, choose your color and set the blending-mode to Multiply and lower the opacity.
The Rims
Every pimped out car needs new rims. I got some fancy rims from sxc.hu. When you start looking for good stocks, make sure not too many stuff is behind the rims. I chose this stock because it has a black background, which works perfectly, because from this angle, with this lightning, you usually won't see anything there.
Grab your Elliptical Marquee-Tool and cut out the rim. Press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer and Ctrl+T to transform the layer into place. Looks great doesn't it?
Graphics
From sxc.hu again, I got this fancy tribal-flame. There's something about tribal shapes that works so well with pimping cars.
Copy the flame-image into your document. Since most of the images are Black and White, a simple setting the blending-mode to Multiply will do the trick of removing the background. If the image is inversed, press Ctrl+I or set it to Lighten to see the flame in White. Use Edit>Transform>Distort to transform your flames in the right direction.
I really prefer nice straight lines. Racing-stripes. I did this the same way. Just playing around with the opacity and making sure that if the shape is larger then the car, Ctrl+click the White layer again, press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and press Delete.
Neon
On a new layer, use either the Pen-Tool or the Polygonal Lasso-Tool to create a green rectangle over the car. Grab your 200px soft Eraser and gently erase the parts that overlap the car.
The press Ctrl+J twice to make 2 duplicates of the layer. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and give the first copy a blur or 6-10 and set the blending-mode to Overlay. Give the second one a Gaussian Blur of 10-20 and change the blending-mode to Linear Light and tweek with the opacity of both layers.
Conclusion
There you have it. Your own pimped out ride. Pimping was never this easy. Experiment with different objects from other cars. Now you can have a Ferrari with Porsche-doors. I am no car-geek, so I have no idea how many impossible mixtures can be made.
But just upload your car somewhere and show it in the comments. The best ones, will be featured in this tutorial! Have fun and remembers, Experiment. Especially with the colors. Don't be affraid to try something new to get a cool new result. And if you fail at something, you've also learned something. You've learned never to do that again!
Enjoy!
