Knowing how to recolor elements and papers in digital scrapbooking gives you more options when mixing and matching. If you are very particular about the color you are working on, you can easily recolor them using GIMP.

Recolor Elements and Papers

This golden yellow ribbon is a digital element used for digital scrapbooking. I opened a white layer below it to highlight the element, but make sure that when you are recoloring, the actual element layer is the one activated.

You can easily change its color by going to Color and then Colorize. It will automatically open to a blue color by default. Simply adjust the slides to get the exact color and shade that you want.

You may also use the Bucket Fill tool, but if you want to retain the texture of an element, make sure that Affected Area is set to Fill similar colors. If not, the color will fill the selected area with a flat color-no texture, lines, or shadows.

If you want to recolor  a specific area in an element, highlight it using the Free Select tool before colorizing.

It is also the same method when recoloring a digital paper.

Colorize is one way to go.

When using the Bucket Fill tool at a Fill similar colors setting, where you click would make a difference in the result, especially for patterned and multicolored papers. This, for example, was clicked outside of the hearts, turning the light blue color to a different one.

If you click into the heart, it would look like this.

Using GIMP’s Colorize and Bucket Fill tool lets you explore the many possibilities of recoloring, so get creative!