How to Change Hair Color in a Photo Before You Dye It

To change hair color in a photo, you need a tool that recolors the hair and leaves your face, eyebrows and skin alone. With an AI editor, such as ChatGPT, the Gemini app or Smart Editor in Toybox AI, the change takes one typed sentence. The free manual route is Photopea in a browser. Below are the options for each phone, wording for three shades on one photo, and what to check before you book a color appointment.

7 ways to change hair color in a photo

AI editors redraw the hair from a sentence, while manual editors shift the color of the pixels you select. As of September 2026:

How to describe a new hair color to an AI editor

A useful instruction names the shade, where it goes, and everything that must not change. Change the color only, and leave a new cut for a separate edit. OpenAI's guide to ChatGPT image edits gives the same advice for any change: make one small revision per pass, so the rest of the picture holds still. The guide to an AI photo editor that doesn't change faces has more on why faces shift.

• The shade in plain words. "Copper auburn", "cool ash blonde" and "dark chocolate brown" point to one color. "Red" or "blonde" leaves the editor to pick. Vivid colors work the same way: "pastel lavender" or "deep teal", not "purple" or "blue".
• Where it goes. All over, roots only, face-framing pieces, or balayage on the ends.
• The finish. Glossy, soft or matte, and whether you want a slightly darker root, which is what real color looks like a few weeks after a salon visit.
• What stays. Face, eyebrows, eyelashes, skin tone, haircut and part, clothes, background and light.

Three shades on one photo

To compare shades fairly, run each one from your original photo instead of stacking one color on top of another. Paste them as written into Smart Editor's "What should change?" box, or into a ChatGPT or Gemini chat along with your photo:

Change my hair color to a rich copper auburn with a soft glossy finish and slightly darker roots. Keep my haircut, part, length and flyaways exactly as they are. Keep my face, eyebrows, eyelashes, skin tone, clothes, background and lighting the same.

Change my hair color to a cool ash blonde with no yellow or orange tones, keeping a light brown root about one inch long at the scalp. Keep my haircut, part and every curl the same. Don't change my face, eyebrows, skin tone, makeup, clothes or the background.

Change my hair color to a dark chocolate brown, one even shade from root to tip, with natural shine where the light hits. Keep my haircut and hairline exactly the same. Keep my face, eyebrows, skin, earrings, clothes and the background unchanged.

Highlights, balayage and gray blending

Partial color needs a placement, or the editor may recolor everything:

Add honey blonde balayage to my hair, starting at about chin level and getting lighter toward the ends, with my natural dark brown kept at the roots and crown. Keep my haircut, part and face exactly the same, and don't change my eyebrows or skin tone.

Blend my gray roots into soft silver highlights so the gray looks planned, with my natural color still showing between the highlights. Keep my haircut, face, eyebrows, glasses and the background the same.

A new cut is a separate edit with its own wording. The page on how to try on hairstyles covers bangs, bobs and buzz cuts.

Change hair color in a photo on iPhone

The iPhone Photos app can't recolor just your hair. Apple's iOS 27 guide lists Adjust settings (such as Exposure, Brilliance and Highlights), filters and Photographic Styles, which change the look of the whole picture, plus Clean Up, Extend and Reframe, which remove things or change the frame. For the hair alone, use another app:

1. Google Photos (typed edit). Install Google Photos and turn on Ask Photos in its settings, under Preferences, then Gemini features in Photos. Google also asks for Face Groups and location estimates to be on. In the photo, tap Edit, then Ask, and describe the change, for example "change her hair to copper auburn and keep her face the same". Google lists iOS 18 or later, a personal Google Account and an age of 18 or older, and Ask Photos is only in some countries so far.
2. ChatGPT or the Gemini app. Attach the photo to a new chat along with one of the shade instructions.
3. Snapseed (subtle shifts). Snapseed's Brush changes exposure, saturation, brightness or warmth only where you paint. It can make brown hair a little warmer or lighter, but the Brush has no hue setting, so it won't turn brown hair blue.
4. Smart Editor in Safari. Toybox works in the phone's browser, with no download.

Keep your original. In Google Photos, Save as copy creates a new photo and leaves the original alone, while plain Save changes the original.

Change hair color on Android and Samsung phones

On Android, Ask Photos in Google Photos works the same way, with the same age, account and country limits: open the photo, tap Edit, then Ask, type the change, tap Enter, and save. Google lists Android 8.0 or later and at least 3 GB of RAM for most of its editing tools.

Samsung Galaxy AI phones have their own typed editor, Photo assist, in the Gallery app:

1. In Gallery, open the photo and tap the pencil icon.
2. Tap Photo assist (the blue circle with stars), then choose Create.
3. Type the change in the text field, for example "change the woman's hair to dark chocolate brown".
4. Tap Generate, compare the result with your original, and tap Save as copy.

Photo assist works only online, signed in to a Samsung account, on Galaxy AI phones and tablets running One UI 6.1 or later. The edited photo comes back resized to 12MP at most, and Samsung marks AI-generated images with a Galaxy AI watermark.

Change hair color in a photo online for free with Photopea

Photopea is a free image editor that runs in the browser and works like a desktop photo editor. It changes only the hair you select, so your face and background stay exactly as they were. It takes longer than typing a sentence, and it shifts the color you have rather than inventing a new one.

1. Open your photo in Photopea.
2. Choose the Quick Selection tool and brush over the hair. Each stroke adds to the selection. Hold Alt and brush to take back any skin or background it grabbed.
3. Choose Select, then Refine Edge. Paint gray over the hairline and the loose strands, the edges the first selection got wrong. Photopea works out how see-through each gray pixel should be and what color it is.
4. Set the output to New Layer, the option Photopea recommends for the best result, and click OK. The hair now sits on a layer of its own.
5. With that layer selected, open Image, then Adjustments, then Hue / Saturation (Ctrl + U). Move Hue toward the new color, then lower Saturation until the hair looks like hair and not paint.
6. Zoom in on the part and the hairline, then save a copy.

Hue moves the color, not how light or dark the hair is. Black hair stays dark and turns muddy instead of blonde, so for a jump from dark to light, an AI editor that redraws the hair is the practical route.

Use the preview before you book a color appointment

A photo preview is a starting point for the conversation with your colorist, not a promise. The dye result depends on your starting color and hair history, which the photo can't know.

• Bring two photos. Show the original next to your favorite preview, so the colorist sees the jump from your real color.
• Ask about lightening. If the preview is several shades lighter than your hair, ask whether it needs bleach first and plan the timing. The FDA's hair dye checklist says to leave at least 14 days between bleaching, relaxing or a perm and your next dye.
• Patch test every time. The FDA advises a skin patch test before each dye job, even if you've used the same dye before without a problem.
• Keep your brows out of it. If a preview only looks right with darker brows, don't reach for hair dye. The FDA hasn't approved any color additive for dyeing brows or lashes, and it says hair dyes used around the eyes have caused injuries, including blindness.
• Check it in daylight. Salon lighting, a bathroom mirror and your phone screen all show color differently. Compare the preview with a daylight photo.

Tips for a realistic hair color change

• Start from a daylight photo. Stand facing a window with your hair dry and down. Hair in shadow or under yellow lamps gives the editor the wrong starting color.
• Show the roots and part. A preview can't show how grown-out color looks if the part is hidden under a hat or hood.
• Match the brows on purpose. Platinum hair with very dark brows is a look some people want. If you don't, say "keep my eyebrows my natural color" or ask for them one shade lighter, and remember that's a photo edit only.
• Keep some depth. Real hair has lighter and darker strands. Ask for "natural variation" or "slightly darker underneath" so the color doesn't look like one flat block.
• Watch the skin near the hairline. A new red or copper can tint the forehead and ears. Say "keep my skin tone exactly the same" and check those spots.

Troubleshooting a hair color edit

Change hair color in Smart Editor

Smart Editor runs on OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5 and changes your photo from a written instruction, so you can name the exact shade and list what stays. It comes with Pro and higher plans, which currently start at $9.99 a month for 1,000 credits (see current plans).

1. Open Smart Editor and add your daylight photo under "Your image" (JPG or PNG, 10 MB or less).
2. Paste the first shade into "What should change?" and adjust it to your hair: length, part and roots.
3. In "More options", leave "Quality" on HD (currently 85 credits) and "Shape" on "Original".
4. Tap "Apply edit". The result usually takes about 30 seconds.
5. Check the hairline, your brows and the skin at your temples against the original.
6. For the second shade, set "Editing" to "Original photo", paste the next instruction, and apply it. Do the same for the third, so every shade starts from your real hair.

Every edit redraws the whole picture, and there's no brush to fence off your face, so small details you didn't mention can move. That's why each shade instruction ends with a keep list. The same one-sentence approach recolors clothes, in how to change shirt color in a photo, and eyes, in the guide to changing eye color. For more edits to try on your own pictures, browse these photo editing ideas.