Interested to learn how to change colors in the photo selectively? For example, changing the eye color of a person in a photo. We’ve all experienced that moment when we’re curious what our eyes would look like in a different color. Get creative with not just the regular eye colors, but the rare, stunning duo-toned hues.
Whether it’s for your profession or your hobby, we’d like to show you how you can easily make selective color changes in Pixlr Pro. We’re using eye colors as an example. Not only is this quick, but it’s also easy to replicate.
Here’s How You Can Change Eye Color in Pixlr Pro
Open your image in Pixlr Pro. We went with this photo.
There’s a row of buttons under the layers. Click New Adjustment Layer.
Select Hue/Saturation.
Check Colorize.
Drag Saturation to the maximum, just to make the image visibly colored.
This adjustment layer has a mask. Click it and make sure it’s selected.
Take the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill the canvas with black. For the mask, black means transparent so the adjustment’s effect will disappear.
Now, take a Brush (B). Select a soft one.
If you work with a mouse, lower the Opacity to have greater control over the pressure.
Now, switch the color to white (X). White means opaque for the mask, so if you paint with it, it will reveal the effect of the adjustment in the painted area.
So, paint over the eyes with white to reveal their colorization. Make sure that your mask is still selected! Switch between white and black to paint and erase to achieve a precise end result.
Now, double-click the adjustment’s thumbnail to open its settings.
Drag Hue and Saturation sliders to achieve the color that you wanted.
If you want to use more colors, you can right-click the adjustment layer and select Duplicate Layer (Control-J). As it’s a separate adjustment, you can use a different Hue here and paint over the mask to reveal this new color differently.
If you want to use multiple colors, there’s also another technique. Create a New Layer.
Hold Alt key and drag the mask of the previous adjustment to copy it to this new layer.
Change the Blend Mode of this layer to Color.
Now you can simply paint on this layer (not on the mask!) with any colors you wish. The mask will limit the effect to the outline of the eyes, and the Color Blend Mode will blend the colors with the photo.
And that’s all! Now you know how to change eye color in Pixlr Pro.
For more quick guides and design tips, check out our tutorial collection.