Change hair color

[stopa]

Hello,

I am trying to change color of hair - but I can’t! Any ideas how to make blond hair a deep red? All my survey fail on a copperred- color.

[Dm_Cher]

Originally Posted by stopa

Hello,

I am trying to change color of hair - but I can’t! Any ideas how to make blond hair a deep red? All my survey fail on a copperred- color.

You can use our plug-in Image Repainter
Select (with featherind) area for repainting, run plug-in, select template and press OK.
Download ImageRepainter (Demo)

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Example

[irshgrlkc]

Not sure exactly what you want but here goes (using Photoshop CS2)...

1. Select her hair using the method you are most comfortable with (I used quick-mask and then saved the selection).

2. With hair selection active (and not in quick mask mode) I went to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation.

3. Click OK. In next window, click the box to select colorize. Play around with the sliders until you have the color you want. Click ok when done.

4. To make the hair a bit more natural you can then dodge and burn some highlights back into the hair.

Here's my example, please forgive the sloppiness, I did it using my laptop's touchpad.

Kerry

[miguel]

hey stopa, here's my attempt.

1. hue/saturation level (check colorise)
2. set level to multiply
3. add mask and brush in the hair
4. adjust hue/saturation level to match color your looking for

[NancyJ]

This is really scruffy cos I'm at work and I only have GIMP here but the principles are the same.
I selected the colour sample you provided, created a new layer and set the blend more to colour and painted over the hair
Being blonde, it was a little bright so I duplicated the original and set the blend mode to multiply, then masked out everything but the hair.
If its too bright still, repeat the multiply step - if its too dark, adjust opacity of multiply layer.

[i.ilievski]

Here is my attempt!
just a simple color replace!!! and few burn and dodge touch ups!!!
hair color can allway be adjusted to desired color by replacing the color again...

[stopa]

Tahnx for all sugestions. I think that I will use Nancy'sJ and Miguel path. My biggest problem was blond color of her hair- and YES the answer (for me) is MULTIPLY!!!
Thank you NancyJ
Miguel!

[RJD]

This is what i got. If you want to know the workflow please tell and I will share.

[Godmother]

Ok... this is mine. I think i's very important for the hair to look realistic, not just colorized.

Let me know if you wanna hear the steps.

[Cameraken]

Hi Stopa.

I made a gradient from the supplied colours and applied a gradient map to the hair and then changed the blending mode to Multiply. (but color and overlay look fine as well)

Hope this helps.

Ken.

[Godmother]

I hope you don't mind... I thought she needed a little something

[maasika]

Maybe something like that? I didn't do the hair ends properly, just a quick draft... I think the color is awful, though, and doesn't match her complexion and lipstick shade at all.

[NancyJ]

Originally Posted by Godmother

Ok... this is mine. I think i's very important for the hair to look realistic, not just colorized.
.

That all depends how you define realistic, the one I did is very close to my actual hair colour (under good lighting anyway) Just like the girl on the box, though it cost £50 at a salon to actually get it that colour.

But I'm sure many people wouldnt consider that to be 'realistic'. Given that, as this thread as shown, deep red can be interpretted as anything from bright ginger to brown with a 50p 'shaders' dye job, I chose the colour sample provided at the top of the image (well I assume thats what it was for).

Natural and realistic are not the same thing, most of the posts in this thread I would class as realistic (aside from quick and sloppy masking) though few look 'natural'.

This monitor isnt callibrated so maybe it will look different at home but yours looks like a cheap temporary dye on brunette hair thats gone a little pink (and were the roots intentional ) - which is probably more realistic for most of us with our home dye kits, but I'm not sure that its a desirable colour for advertising. In fashion and advertising, many things are exaggerated, including hair colour.

[miguel]

stopa, glad to help - it's really simple using the hue/saturation/mask method becuase you can go from "natural" to "realistic" to "exagerated" jsut by playing around with the colorisation slider - i've attached four samples of variations.

[KR1156]

go into Lab mode, mask out the hair, then play with the a & b channels for the color...then play with the L channel for the tone.

Did this in like a min or 2.

hope this helps.

[Godmother]

KR1156 Really nice work!

[Kraellin]

hehehe, i always love these and this once again shows there's always more than one way to skin a cat.

i used to usually mask and then apply something like hue/sat, but more and more i find i can get a more natural look with an airbrush on a blank layer and more finely tune the look i want as well. some folks also like to set the blank layer to 'color' blend.

the way i was originally taught was from a photo editor at maxim magazine. it involved a duped layer, a complete mask and a colorizing layer. you then simply erased the parts of the mask you wanted to get the colorizing. well, something like that. it's been a while since i've used that method though.

there are also plugins that can do a fairly good job of this, but again, usually with a mask. i have a filter forge filter that will do it quite nicely.

craig

edit: oops, i forgot one vital step in my airbrushing. after you get the color applied you simply gausian blur the airbrush layer to suit and then erase any bits where the color blurred outside where you wanted it.

edit: boy, i'm getting old...keep forgetting things. the airbrushing has an added advantage in that you now have a layer with color in the shape of the hair. you can now change the hair color VERY easily to anything you want since it's isolated on its own layer. use blend modes and hue/sat and you can change from anything to anything.

[KR1156]

Thanks alot Godmother.

[RJD]

Another quick go. Note did not mask properly as I was not spening a good amount of time on this.

[leuallen]

Why stop with the hair. Go all the way.

Seriously, one thing I picked up was correcting the fringy hair against the background. Used Hue/Sat with masks. Same mask, Selective color above.

Use Selective color to adjust main colors and densities. For the fringy hair, use the white channel and adjust to taste. All using same mask.

Larry

[stopa]

Thank you again for all of yours sugestions.
When I finish working on this picture, I will send Before-After link.

[rsphoto]

Originally Posted by NancyJ

Natural and realistic are not the same thing, most of the posts in this thread I would class as realistic (aside from quick and sloppy masking) though few look 'natural'.

Tried to strike a balance between natural and realistic.

Cleaned up the noisy skin. Added contrast to the hair and image overall. Reshaped the right shoulder for balance. Changed the hair color with a layer set to color blend mode and then painted with the sampled color. Changed the lip color with a Hue/Saturation layer to match to the new hair color. Added shadow/highlight contouring on a 50% gray layer set to overlay blend mode.

[Littlecoo]

Converted to cmyk mode, quick mask of hair applied to curves adjustment layer, played with curves till I got close to your chip colour.
I used to have my hair that colour afew months ago... hmmm, I think I might go dye purple for a change...

[KR1156]

Littlecoo.......nice job....i especially like the way you made sure not to colorize her scalp where her par is.....many ppl just paint right over it.

[Littlecoo]

Thx KR1156, I am a stickler for detail especially if it is something so simple as to soft brush a part line on the mask, and not to mention recent experience colourizing a photo of a woman with cornrow braids hehe.