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How to Turn White into deep Color and colorize Black in Photoshop

Colin Smith

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How to colorize black or white in Photoshop

It’s pretty easy to change a color to another color in Photoshop, especially with Adjust Color.

What can be more tricky is starting with white or starting with black and making them color. I’ve heard from some of you, struggling with this. You might be able to get some color into white or black, but it’s not good strong and deep color. This Photoshop tutorial shows you how to get nice deep colors, any color you want from white or black.

We will colorize both the black and the white shirts. Just to show how well this works, we will even match the results with the same color.

how to change white to solid color in photoshop, how to change black to vivid color in Photoshop

You could try the Adjust Colors feature.

adjust color in Photoshop doesn't work for white or black, use this tip..

But this tool won’t work on black or white. Here’s a better way..

How to turn White into vivid Color in Photoshop

First of all, we will work on the white t-shirt and change it to a color.

change a white shirt to color in Photoshop

Select the shirt in the photo.

Choose the Object Selection Tool.

Where the Object selection tool is in Photoshop

In the Tool Options bar, choose Rectangle. It will be faster than selecting with a lasso.

Object selection tool options in Photoshop

Make a  rectangle over the white shirt and release.

create a selection

Photoshop knows that you want to select the shirt and will make the selection for you.

If Photoshop selects too much, Hold the alt/Option key and drag on the area to remove from the selection.

If Photoshop misses some parts, hold down the Shift key and select the area to add.

Photoshop auto selection

Now we have a selection, let’s change the color.

In the Layers Panel, click on the add Adjustment layer icon.

add Adjustment layer icon.

Choose the Hue/Saturation Option.

Hue Saturation in Photoshop

You will see a mask has been made from your selection. The adjustments will only be applied to the shirt.

Adjust the Hue and notice, only the shadow areas change a little bit.

changing the hue of white in the properties panel in Photoshop

Click on Colorize to force color.

Choose colorize to add a color hue

The Hue works a bit better now, but it’s still weak. This is where people get stuck.

Let’s get you unstuck with my trick for white.

changing white to color but its washed out, do this instead.

Move the Lightness to the left. Now white is being forced to gray and the colorize is  working really well.

Using brightness to introduce strong color in Photoshop

Adjust the Saturation to add more color. With the 3 sliders, any color is possible.

  • Hue: the color
  • Saturation: Amount of color
  • Lightness: the brightness, and activator of color on white

We were able to change white into a nice strong blue.

How to turn Black to color in Photoshop

Let’s change black now.

How to turn black into color in Adobe Photoshop

Choose the background layer.

With the Object Selection, make a selection around the black t-shirt, just like we did earlier on with the white t-shirt.

making a selection

Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

Add an adjustment layer in Photoshop

In the Properties panel, Chose Colorize

Colorize black in Photoshop software

This time, increase the Lightness to the right. This brightens the black and makes it gray. The Colorize adds color.

adding color into black using photoshop

Now you can easily choose any color. The shirts are both blue, but not quite the same blue.

In a moment, I’ll show you how to match the color of the two blue shirts easily.

both black and white are now color

Fixing the edges

You may have noticed the edges are a bit bad, there are light and dark edges. Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn’t.

Here’s how to fix it.

Hold down Cmd/Ctrl on your keyboard and Click on the layer mask to load it as a selection.

how to load a mask as a selection

Select>Modify>Expand

You will have to guess the amount as there is no visual reference. Usually 1 or 2 pixels is the right amount. Often 1 is best.

Click ok and the selection will expand to become larger.

Choose Select>Modify>Feather, and add 1 pixel.

Modify a selection in Photoshop

Choose the brush tool

Set white as the foreground color.

With the layer mask selected, begin to paint the edge to fix it.

Here’s a tip, Press Ctrl/Cmd+H. This will hide the selection marching ants, so you can see where you are repairing the edge.

The selection will still be active, it will just be hidden.

How to hide a selection in Photoshop

Paint around the edges that need fixing. See how the white edge is disappearing.

fixing bad edges in Photoshop

How to Match two colors perfectly and easily in Photoshop

Now it’s time to make the two blue shirts the same shade of blue. Rather than moving sliders trial and error, until they are perfect, there’s an easy way.

Choose the top layer, click on the Hue/Saturation icon. It will load into the properties panel.

How to make 2 colors the same

Take a note of the number of the Hue and the Saturation.

213 for Hue

THe hue amount

And 68 for Saturation.

Saturation amount

Choose the Layer underneath (the other shirt) and enter 213 for Hue and 68 for saturation.

The colors will now match.

All you need to do is adjust the Lightness.

Use brightness to match 2 colors in Photoshop

This one, you need to eyeball, but move the lightness until the 2 colors match.

The result of colorizing a white shirt and a black shirt in Photoshop and matching the new colors to be the same..

Alright, we just completed a difficult task, but its wasn’t so difficult to do.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Here are some tutorials on fixing the edge halos for selections in Photoshop.

Some specific tutorials

Drop a comment and let me know how it worked for you. Also follow me on social media, I’m posting short tutorials on Instagram daily.

Great to see you here at the CAFE, Colin


PS Don’t forget to follow us on Social Media for more tips.. (I've been posting some fun Instagram and Facebook Stories lately)
You can get my free Layer Blending modes ebook along with dozens of exclusive Photoshop Goodies here photoshop goodies for free

13 thoughts on “How to Turn White into deep Color and colorize Black in Photoshop

  1. Mr Richard Moore
    September 18, 2025 at 2:01 am

    Why can I not see the video?

    1. Colin Smith
      September 18, 2025 at 5:24 pm

      The video went live at 6am this morning, it should display correctly now. I released this written tutorial early.

  2. Marina
    September 22, 2025 at 1:42 am

    I’m happy to learn how to do changing the colors perfectly. You’ve read my mind. So many mistakes left in the past!
    Thank you!!
    Marina

  3. Charles HUBY
    September 22, 2025 at 7:59 am

    Hi Colin,
    Many thanks for your always very interesting videos.For this one , the colour transformation is perfect but I think the contrast of the teeshirts is rather soft and should be modified as to render properly the shadows of the folds . I got a pleasing result with an s-curve layer and a Blend-if correction to protect the general color of the fabrics and just affecting the shadows. Have a happy life !

  4. Dennis Zito
    September 23, 2025 at 6:52 pm

    Hi Colin,
    That was GREAT!! Thanks for bring that to our attention. I’ve been try to figure that out for a while now. As a side not to you have some tutorials on removing white and black halos after making a selection?
    Thanks again,
    Dennis

  5. Dennis
    September 24, 2025 at 1:11 pm

    Your description of what to do was not only very good but also very timely. I really needed it for the image I’m currently processing.

    1. Colin Smith
      September 25, 2025 at 10:58 am

      I’m delighted that you are able to use it right away.

  6. JP
    September 24, 2025 at 3:09 pm

    Well, the title sure fooled me. I thought for one heady moment that Photoshop had finally done something real with colorize so that it would be possible to have vibrant, genuine colour added over black and white photos, rather than the faded, purple-ized nonsense currently on offer. It’s as if they think that black and white = old; old = faded; therefore colorize = faded and/or false colours. Sheesh. Nice tutorial, like all your work. Thanks for being a useful guide for so much of my work. Oh yeah, one of the main problems with colorize is that it cannot detect the different between the edge of a garment and a mere fold in cloth.

    1. Colin Smith
      September 25, 2025 at 10:57 am

      Sorry for the confusion, that’s why I titled it “white or black” to try to avoid confusion with “black and white”, I do my best. I agree with you, colorize isn’t great, maybe I can work on improving those results soon.

  7. Cynthia D Hollingsworth
    September 25, 2025 at 11:13 am

    This was AWESOME. I had no idea this was possible.

  8. Leonard Modderman
    September 26, 2025 at 7:28 pm

    That was great Colin as I was trying to change a black color and did not know how. So thanks.

    with respect to the edges, once I made my selection, I expanded it by 2 pixel before I changed the color and there was no problem having to fix it later. Is that correct?

  9. Mark Smith
    October 3, 2025 at 9:46 am

    Thanks, Colin! I’ve struggled with HSL manipulations and haven’t thought them good for much. The use of the Lightness slider to move to a gray tone shows me why I was not getting any benefit. Now I know!

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