How to change the color of clothing in Photoshop

How to change the color of clothing in Photoshop

Changing clothing colors in product photos or portraits requires precise selection techniques and the right adjustment layers to achieve realistic results. Standard color replacement methods often fall short when creating convincing black or white clothing, which demand special attention to highlights and shadows.

This method combines selection tools with dual adjustment layers to control both color and contrast, ensuring your color changes look natural and professional across any fabric type.

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Video by PHLEARN. Any links or downloads mentioned by the creator are available only on YouTube

Practical Tips

These essential techniques will help you achieve professional clothing color changes with realistic results.

  • Use Select Subject first, then refine your selection by painting black on the layer mask to exclude skin, hair, and unwanted areas
  • Create a group with both Hue/Saturation and Curves adjustment layers to share the same mask and maintain consistent editing
  • Enable the Colorize option in Hue/Saturation and avoid dragging lightness to extremes for more natural color transitions
  • For realistic black clothing, use moderate lightness settings combined with Curves to darken shadows while preserving highlights
  • When creating white clothing, use the opposite approach: moderate lightness in Hue/Saturation with Curves to brighten highlights and lift shadows

Explore more color changing techniques for different scenarios and challenging color transformations.

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