A Woman in White Shirt Coloring Her Hair

How to Change Hair Color in Photoshop – Retouching Tutorial

Change hair color in Photoshop is not a very easy subject to learn in a day. The main challenge here is to change hair color in such a manner that looks like natural hair color. An abrupt change in color settings without any thought being given to it can lead to an awful image.

The two main aspects that come into the scenario when we speak about hair color are the highlight and the shadows. Even a hair super dark in color can appear little brownish when under the sunlight.

A very common approach taken by experts while coloring hair in software is to go from light color tones to dark rather than the opposite.  This in depth tutorial here will help you understand how you can change color of hair into different tones.

  • We are here first changing a red toned hair color to brown to blonde and then to black. Using the adjustment layer make use of the Selective Color. Using the different color value settings you can tweak and get the perfect hair color tone you desire. It adjusts the highlights, mid tones as well as the shadows separately here.  What is basically shown over here to take redness out from the hair to give it a brown tone?  This is one way to work on changing hair color in Photoshop.
  • For creating a black tone create a new layer and make a group of the hair layer with the new layer. To make a black hair tone it is important to take out all the color from the hair at first. Hence by using the hue saturation adjustment layer you can choose red and with the help of the eyedropper (color picker) tool choose a sample of the red from the hair. This selects all red tones. By bringing the saturation to zero level will give you a hair color where red is not present.
  • Using layer mask paint the face and other areas of the photograph where you want the color to remain. Over here we are focused on changing color of the hair and not on any other area.
  • Care must be taken where the hairline ends and the forehead begins. It is this area where hair is thinly spread. Using the brush tool carefully paint the area so the skin maintains its color tone. Using the Curve tool from the adjustment layer you can again work on tweaking the level of the skin tone. The same layer can be used to create a grayish hair tone as well.

How to change hair color in Photoshop tutorial can be applied in a variety of scenarios where you do not want to undergo a real life hair color change but want to portray a particular look. Not only does it saves you a hole in your wallet but also gives you options you have never though off. One can play with the settings and come up with some creative color changes in the hair as well.


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