Giving color to greyscale image

Ok, this is the situation.
Some people asked me to design a DVD-cover (of my favorite footballteam).
This is what I have so far:
www.4u-events.be/coverdvd.jpg

So... what I want to do is give every player a yellow-red shirt.
What I did with the palyer on the right: I just re-brushed the red and yellow on a new layer above the shirt and set the layer-style on "color" and the opacity around 80%. So far so good...

Then I wanted to do the same for the other players... But I just can't get it right. Ofcourse the problem is that the greyscale-values behind the color-layer are different every time.

Can somebody please help me out with this ??? Actually it's a very important project to me.

Greetz Rob

just create the colors for two or three of them then play with your blending modes til you like the effect. it WILL look a bit different for each of them becase the grayscale values will be different, it would be no different in a color photo. depending on the angle of the main light source, whose in whose shadow, etc., you'll have some color variance, that's what real-life looks like

chris

[QUOTE=Fig]just create the colors for two or three of them then play with your blending modes til you like the effect. it WILL look a bit different for each of them becase the grayscale values will be different, it would be no different in a color photo. depending on the angle of the main light source, whose in whose shadow, etc., you'll have some color variance, that's what real-life looks like

chris[/QUOTE]
Yes, but the problem is that the result isn't that realistic...

Coming from a retouching background my instincts say there is no easy solution. Intricate masking, clever use of the channels etc..

However, I just looked at how far you have got and it looks fine! don't stress about it so much. It looks a little odd at the moment because the rest of the photo is monotone, but by the time that you finish the colouring it will be alright.

very true. also, without seeing it "not looking very realistic" its impossible to give you any thoughts on how to fix it do some more, post it and ask some questions and we can try to be more help. it may just require more playing with blending modes and layer opacities. i did a similar thing with a band photo, i'll see if i can find the psd when i'm home later on tonight and see what my exact method was.

chris