How to Change Hair Color in Photoshop

To change hair color in Photoshop, select the hair, refine the edge with Select and Mask, then add a Hue/Saturation or Solid Color adjustment layer so the selection becomes its mask. The new color sits on its own layer, the original photo stays untouched, and you can change the shade or strength at any time. The same tools cover gray hair and stray strands, which are covered further down.

The steps below work for any hair color change, from a subtle shift toward auburn to a bright fantasy color. One rule governs how realistic the result can be: Photoshop’s color methods change the hue of the hair but keep its own light and dark. Going darker, or keeping the same lightness with a different hue, is easy. Turning very dark hair light blonde is hard, because the bright detail a blonde needs is not in the photo.

Step 1: Select the hair

Hair is one of the hardest things to select, so let Photoshop do the first pass and refine it after.

1. Make a rough selection. Choose Select > Subject to select the whole person, or use the Quick Selection tool and drag over the hair. For a person, it is often quickest to select the subject, then hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) with the Quick Selection tool and drag over the face, neck and clothes to remove them.
2. Open Select and Mask. Choose Select > Select and Mask. Set the view to Overlay or On Black so you can see the edge clearly.
3. Refine the hair edge. Click Refine Hair in the options bar, then paint along the outline with the Refine Edge Brush, especially where strands cross the background. Photoshop looks for fine hair inside the area you paint.
4. Output the result as a Selection and click OK.

Do not chase every flyaway strand. The color methods below keep the hair’s own detail, so a slightly loose edge looks natural, and you can paint the mask later.

New to masks? Layers and masks in Photoshop explains how white reveals, black hides and gray blends, which is all this technique relies on.

Step 2: Add the new color

With the selection still active, add an adjustment layer. Photoshop turns the selection into the layer’s mask automatically, so the color only reaches the hair. There are two good ways to do it.

Method A: Hue/Saturation with Colorize

1. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation.
2. Tick Colorize. The hair takes on a single new hue while keeping its highlights and shadows.
3. Drag Hue to choose the color. The slider runs around the color wheel: values near 0 give reds, around 20 to 40 give copper, gold and brown tones, around 60 yellow, around 200 to 240 blues and around 300 magentas.
4. Keep Saturation low for natural hair, roughly 15 to 40. Real hair is less saturated than people expect, and high values look painted.

For a gentle shift rather than a new color, leave Colorize off and nudge the Hue slider a few points. This rotates the hair’s existing color, for example turning mousy brown slightly warmer, and keeps the natural variation between strands.

Method B: Solid Color fill in Color blend mode

1. Choose Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color and pick the target color.
2. In the Layers panel, change the layer’s blend mode to Color. The Color mode applies the hue and saturation of the fill while keeping the brightness of the hair underneath, so all the strand detail shows through.
3. Lower the layer’s opacity until the color looks believable, often 40 to 70 percent.
4. For a richer, more contrasty dye look, try Soft Light or Overlay instead of Color. Both also change brightness, so check that highlights do not glow or shadows go muddy.

Method B makes it easy to try many shades: double-click the fill layer’s thumbnail and the color picker opens with the result updating live.

Not sure what Color, Soft Light and Overlay do differently? Photoshop blend modes sorts them into families and shows what each one does to the layer below.

Step 3: Fix the lightness with Curves

A new hue on the old lightness often looks wrong: blonde over dark hair looks muddy, and black over light brown looks faded. Adjust brightness with a Curves layer, not with the Lightness slider in Hue/Saturation, which mixes the color with black or white and flattens the hair.

1. Add a Curves adjustment layer below the color layer.
2. Give it the same mask: hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and drag the mask thumbnail from the color layer onto the Curves layer.
3. To lighten, drag the middle of the curve up; to darken, drag it down. Keep some contrast so the shine on the hair survives.

Lightening dark hair has a limit. Curves can lift it, but the shadows between strands lift too, and past a certain point the hair turns gray and flat. Light brown or auburn from dark brown is usually believable; platinum from black rarely is.

Want to know what each part of the curve controls? Curves and levels covers shaping highlights, midtones and shadows separately.

Step 4: Clean up the mask edges

Zoom to 100 percent and look at the edges. Most problems are in four places:

• The hairline and parting: if the forehead or scalp picked up color, select the mask and paint with black using a soft brush at low opacity.
• Loose strands: paint thin white strokes on the mask with a small soft brush where strands against the background were left out.
• Roots: real hair is often a little darker at the roots. A slightly weaker effect there, painted with gray on the mask, looks more natural than an even color.
• Eyebrows: after a big change, such as dark to red, the brows can look mismatched. Paint them into the mask at reduced strength.

To change any setting later, double-click the adjustment layer. Nothing has been applied to the photo itself.

How to cover gray hair in Photoshop

Gray and white strands are lighter than the hair around them, so covering them means both coloring and darkening them. Leave a few lighter strands; perfectly even hair looks artificial.

The flexible way: a Color layer and Curves

1. Create a new empty layer and set its blend mode to Color.
2. Choose the Brush tool, hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and click on a well-colored area of the person’s hair to sample its color.
3. Paint over the gray strands at about 30 to 50 percent opacity, building up the color in a few passes and resampling as the hair color changes across the head.
4. If the strands are still too light, add a Curves layer, pull the middle down, fill its mask with black, and paint white over the gray areas only.

The quick way: the Burn tool

1. Duplicate the photo layer (Ctrl+J or Cmd+J) so the original stays safe, since the Burn tool changes pixels directly.
2. Choose the Burn tool. Set Range to Midtones for gray strands, or Highlights for bright white ones, and set Exposure low, around 10 to 20 percent.
3. Brush over the gray strands several times. Low exposure with repeated passes gives a natural result; a single strong pass looks blotchy.

The Burn tool only darkens, so it works best when the gray is mixed with darker hair. For a full head of gray, the Color layer method or the hair color steps above give more control.

Making hair look better: flyaways, shine and detail

Color is not the only thing that makes hair look good in a portrait. Three other fixes do most of the work:

• Remove flyaways. Add a new empty layer and turn on Sample All Layers in the tool options. Use the Spot Healing Brush for strands against a plain background, and the Clone Stamp near the edge of the hair, where healing tends to smear. Remove only the strands that distract; a few loose hairs keep the outline real.
• Add shine and shape. Hair looks healthy when it has a clear band of highlight. Dodge along the natural shine and burn lightly between sections to add depth. Doing this on a separate layer filled with 50 percent gray and set to Overlay keeps it adjustable; see dodging and burning.
• Add a little contrast. A Curves layer with a gentle S-shape, masked to the hair, brings out strand detail. Avoid skin-smoothing tools near the hair, which blur texture that should stay crisp.

Working on the whole portrait? Photo retouching covers skin, eyes and hair in a sensible order without overdoing any of them.

Common mistakes

• Color spilling onto skin. A tinted forehead or ear gives the edit away at once. Check the hairline at 100 percent and paint the mask.
• Too much saturation. Natural hair colors are muted. If the color reads as paint, lower Saturation or the layer opacity.
• Using the Lightness slider. It grays out the color and flattens the hair. Use Curves for brightness.
• Expecting dark hair to become platinum. The detail is not there. Choose a target that is close in lightness, or accept a stylized look.
• A hard mask edge. A sharp boundary around the outline looks cut out. Refine the edge in Select and Mask or soften the mask with a soft brush.
• Working directly on the photo. Adjustment layers and empty layers let you change your mind; painting color onto the original does not.

Try this

Open a portrait where the hair is in good focus. Make one selection of the hair, then add three adjustment layers using it as the mask: a Hue/Saturation layer with Colorize set to a copper tone, a Solid Color fill in Color mode set to dark brown, and a Solid Color fill in Soft Light set to a bright blue. Turn them on one at a time and compare how each treats the highlights and the edges. Then pick the most natural one and spend five minutes on the hairline at 100 percent.

Questions people ask about changing hair color in Photoshop

Can I change hair color in Photoshop without making a selection first?

Yes. Add the Hue/Saturation or Solid Color layer with no selection, invert its mask to black (Ctrl+I or Cmd+I with the mask selected), then paint white over the hair with a soft brush. This is slower on the outline but gives full control.

Can you make dark hair blonde in Photoshop?

Only partly. Color and Curves layers can warm and lighten dark hair to a light brown or golden tone, but very dark hair has no bright detail to turn into blonde, and pushing it too far makes it gray and flat. The lighter the starting hair, the better the result.

How do I remove gray hair in Photoshop?

Paint over the gray strands on an empty layer set to Color blend mode, using color sampled from the surrounding hair, then darken the strands with a masked Curves layer. For a quick fix on a duplicate layer, the Burn tool at low exposure set to Midtones also works.

Which blend mode is best for changing hair color?

Color is the safest, because it changes hue and saturation while keeping the hair’s own brightness. Soft Light and Overlay give a richer, more contrasty result but also change brightness, so they need a lower opacity and a careful look at the highlights.

Related guides

• Layers and masks in Photoshop
• Photoshop blend modes
• Curves and levels
• Dodging and burning
• Photo retouching

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