This lesson shows how to realistically change hair color in a portrait — without losing strand texture, and with a natural finish.
2026 note: Recorded on Photoshop CS6 in 2014. Adobe sells Photoshop via Creative Cloud subscription now; about 95% of the menus and shortcuts in the video still match the modern version.
Steps
- Duplicate the background layer.
- Select the hair: rough out with Quick Selection (W), then enter Select and Mask and use Refine Hair to catch the fine strands.
- With the selection active, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer — the selection becomes its mask.
- Tick Colorize. Set Hue for your target (blonde 50, red 0-15, brown 25-35, blue 200-220).
- Saturation: 25-40 for natural hair. Lightness: balance bright/dark.
- Set the adjustment layer’s blend mode to Soft Light or Color — keeps the original sheen and texture.
- Paint black on the mask to remove color spill onto face or background.
Color Presets
- Blonde: Hue 45, Saturation 30, Lightness +15.
- Red: Hue 10, Saturation 50, Lightness 0.
- Blue/Purple (fantasy): Hue 220-260, Saturation 60, blend mode Color.
2026 Shortcut
Photoshop’s Neural Filters > Smart Portrait has a “Hair Color” slider for one-click changes. For radical reimaginings, Stable Diffusion / Adobe Firefly img2img is also an option.
