Photo Retouching – Change Hair Color Photoshop Tutorial
January 12, 2007 by Oli · 33 Comments
Part 3 of the photo retouching series is a how to on changing someones hair color, no bleach required! We will be taking a blonde model and changing her hair color to red.
This is the photo we will be starting with :
The first stage is to mask her hair out, to do this, press ‘q’ then select a suitable brush and paint over her hair – don’t worry if you go over the edges we will sort that out later :
Once the hair is covered in the red overlay, press ‘q’ again which will put a selection around the area, then on the menu go to select > inverse and should have something like this :
Create a new layer and then fill the area with the color of your choice, I have chosen to go with a dark red/brown :
Now, right click on the hair layer and select blending options, change the blend mode to soft light :
Thats looks better, but there will be some areas where you went over her hair line/ears etc. Select the eraser brush on a larger feathered size brush and start to clean up those bits :
When you have it looking how you want, duplicate that layer to make the hair shade darker and again you will see some bits which need to be cleaned up with the eraser brush, choose an even larger feathered brush for this (size 65 or 100 for this image) and blend it in a little bit more :
You can also switch between the two hair layers, slowing working on tidying it up so it looks natural – you can also delete bits on top of the hair and the strands to give the impression of blonde highlights. Play about with this untill you get the desired effect, here’s our finished image :
You can also download the psd for this tutorial.
About Oli
What would be a good method with a dark-hair person?
Going from blonde to red is one thing, going from, say, dark brown to blonde is another ^_°
Thanks a lot!!!
CHEERS
ec
What Photoshop are you using?
I am using Photoshop CS2
Enrico – you could go from dark hair to light hair by using the same method, mask out the hair then desaturate it, use hue saturation and light to lighten the hair right up, then colorize it to blonde. I may do a tutorial on this method aswell.
thats so cool
can i download it for free
and is there a photoshop to where you can change your eye color as well??
i have jasc pro shop 9
is that what i should be using?
I second what Sammie says. It would be really cool if you could show us how to do this with jasc paint shop pro.
mine keeps selecting the whole picture ~
are there any websites where you could change color for free without downloading anything? my computer is messed up and i cant download or install photoshop. so i was wondering if there was a place i could go to do this. ive been to lunapic but it doesnt change colors.
what does q stand for? It doesn’t work for me in that way…nothing happens and I can’t move on
i have problem……….when i have highlighted the selected area and go back to work area…it selects the entire image, rather then selecting only the highlighted area…please tell me how to only select the highlighted area only…
Dear friend,
The letter q stants for quick mask. It works on the basic that if you have to change some portion of the photo or have to cut you have to press this button. or you can either choose quick mask from the left bottom of the tool menu, it also works in the same way.
Thank you
Here a video tutorial that I thing will
help you a lot
http://arilaripi.org/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=26&func=fileinfo&id=295
I have been looking for “how to change hair colour” for ages. Works a treat – THANKS.
However, it works real well when original hair colour is “blonde”. Not so good when original hair colour is dark…….Any help on how to change dark coloured hair would be very much appreciated
I would be happy to see all these tutorials in German (for PS 7)…..
OMG THIS IS SO COOL TYVM :]
i have a big problam
i do exactly the same steps but instead of the brush doing red to select it does white and its not working it wont select please help
Hi!Will it work in Photoshop 6.0? I’m also having difficulty because after highlighting the areas and press q it selects the whole picture.
can you make a tutorial to change the hair color in GIMP?
please!
Ryann, its pretty much the same on Gimp. You open the picture, then turn on quick mask by clicking the box on the bottom left corner. Erase what you want changed then shut off quick mask by re-clicking the quick mask button. Make a new layer on top and fill it with the color you want the hair to be. Now, go to the layers window and near the top where it says mode, click it and change it to soft light.
Pretty cool. BUt can you make a tutorial showing how to change dark hair to blonde >/? thanks so much
Yes, how would go from a dark hair to blonde? I tried a tutorial for that, but it didn’t work out so well.
HELLOO! :]
this method used to work.
then for some reason. fotoshop decides to say that when i inverse “NO PIXELS MORE THAN 50% SELECTED, THE SELECTION EDGES WILL NOT BE VISIBLE”
argh.
==”
help please.
want to learn how do I select curly hair within 2 minutes?
http://denmuel.blogspot.com/2007/09/photoshop-hair-masking-part-2.html
have fun
thx
daniel
how can i dowload this progam ?
i hope it’s free!
because i have no money to buy it.
and i first wanna test how my hair does look in another hair color , before i paint it real !
omg like this actually is the neatest thang i’ve seen all day.. my names jojo im on a shot wit love wit tela tquitila… uhhh anyone wanna hooks wit me?
heey ,
i love when her hair is blonde ,
i asked my parents if i could go blonde and my MOM fraked , my dad just didnt answer, i wish i was aloud to dye my hair blounde , but me parents are ideots , i hate them , there is nothin wrong with blondes , everyone thinks that just because you area blonde than you are a slut , and stupied , but thtas not true , some of the smatest people in the world are blonde . but hello , have anyone watched legaly blonde . everyone thinks that just becuase she is blonde she is a stupied dits , but shes not , and than she graduates harverd , i mean seriousely , i want to go blonde , and i am , im going to prove a point that blonds atny all stupied . that they are smart , and PRETY . and than mabey they boy that i love will ask me out . so , im ganna do it , for me and for jeff
Can you do this with something besides photoshop..because i dont have that
Hi.
Good design, who make it?
hi, well i wanna ask how could i have this photoshop ,i change a lot of my hair color, so my hair is in a verry abd situation,bcz each month i change the color somtimes each week,and still dont know yet which color could b the perfect one ,i hope that u coukd help me,10x a lotttttttttt
ummm i clicked on the box in the left corner, and I tried pushing Q but it just has a pointing hand i dunno what im doing wrong!!!
hi i downloaded corel paint shop pro X2 and i was wodeering if i can change the hair and eye colour on that to? can any one help me ?
Thanks
Edelle
hello, i have a problem with this tutorial every time that i create a quick mask the color from red goes to gray and i cant see when i try to paint it (select it). any ideas?
thanks in advance
Christina