How to change the color of hair in Photoshop

Before reaching for that bottle of dye, have a look in Photoshop and see how you will look with different colored hair. Also useful for retouching and special effects.

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to quickly and easily change the color of hair. We are going to go over from blonde to black and some kind of fun colors as well.

How to change hair color in Photoshop

I started with this photo from Adobe Stock. 

Step 1. Isolating the hair

Grab the Quick Select Tool   

Make a selection around the hair.

( if you go over the edge.) Hit Alt key on Windows/Option on Mac and paint to fix selection

Step 2

Choose the Select and Mask option from the top toolbar

.

In select mask, Click Refine Edge Brush Tool 

Go around the rough edges of the hair to refine the selection

To help with the selction:

Increase the radius.

Turn on Smart Radius.

Turn on Decontaminate Colors.

 

Select  new Layer with Layer Mask

Click OK.

Step 3. Setting up the adjustments

Turn on the background to see the entire image.

Click the Adjustment layer in the Layers panel We are going to create 2 empty adjustments.

Create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer.

Create a Curves Adjustment Layer

The Hue/Saturation will control the color, while the Curves will adjust the brightness.

Step 4. Targeting the adjustments to the hair layer

Right now, the adjustment layers will affect every layer underneath. We want to restrict them to just the layer with the hair cut out.

2 different ways to do this.

1. Click on the little square arrow icon in the properties panel for each adjustment layer.

2. Or you can hold down the Alt key on Windows / Option on Mac and move the curser onto the line between 2 layers. When you see the square arrow, click to apply. This is a clipping group. Make sure you do this to both adjustment layers.

We are all set up. All we have to do now is change  these 2 adjustments to get any color and tone we like.

Step 5. Changing the hair color and tone

Change the hair color by adjusting Saturation. (click on the Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer. Then open the properties panel window>properties, if you can’t see it already)

First, let’s make the hair black.

Pull the Saturation all the way down.

Select the Curves Layer to darken the black

Drag on the curve as shown to add contrast for a perfect black sheen.

 

Let’s make it dark brown.

Select Hue/Saturation Layer.

Pull Saturation up.

 

Step 7 From dark to blond hair

Let’s make the hair blonde.

Reset Hue/Saturation and curves

 

Select Curves Layer.

Pull the curve up in the shape shown (an n-shape)  to get the tone you need.

If you want to make it a bit more platinum and less gold, Go to Hue/Saturation.

Pull down Saturation a bit

 

Step 8 Trying some fun hair color in Photoshop

If you are thinking about dying your hair a more fun color, I highly recommend trying it here in Photoshop first (you might save yourself a little heartbreak, or find the perfect color ;))

 

Play with Hue/Saturation to get different colors and effects. (apply a curves adjustment when you need to lighten or darken it)

 

Copper / red Hair

 

Purple Hair

Blue Hair

Grey Hair

Brown

Green

 

Bonus tutorial: Add multi colored streaks to hair in Photoshop

 

Now we are going to create some cool multi-Colored streaks for the hair. It’s definitely easier to so with this woman who has long straight hair. If you are working with curly hair, it will just take a little more careful brush work.

1. Set up multiple hue saturation adjustment layers.

In this case a I added 3 Hue saturation adjustment layers

Make sure you clip the layers as we did above (Alt-click between the layers)

I made a blue, purple and green adjustment, respective on each hue/saturation layer.

Invert each mask, by selecting and clicking Ctrl/Cmd+I

Add a curves adjustment at the top for any tonal tweaks.

 

2. Painting the streaks in the hair

We are ready to add the color. We will paint the streaks by hand.

Grab a brush and set the color to white. Drop the opacity down to 50.

Select the layer mask on the first adjustment layer Paint the colored strokes.

 

Switch to a different mask and paint.

You can adjust brush settings (choose a softer brush and play around with opacity settings) so that color strokes blend in better.

 

Here’s the result.

Thank you for checking out this tutorial.

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Colin

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