changing an eye colour

In this Photoshop photo retouching tutorial, we'll learn a very simple technique for changing someone's eye color in a photo using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer! Of course, there's no shortage of ways to change colors in an image with Photoshop, but whether you know which color you want to use or just want to play around and experiment, a Hue/Saturation image adjustment makes changing eye color easy, fast and fun!

Here's the image I'll be using:

The original image.

Let's get started!

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Step 1: Zoom In On The Eyes

Before we begin, let's make it easier to see what we're doing by zooming in on the eyes in the photo. Select the Zoom Tool from the Tools palette, or press the letter Z on your keyboard to select it with the shortcut:

Select the Zoom Tool.

With the Zoom Tool selected, click and drag out a selection box around the eyes. This is the area we'll be zooming in to:

Drag out a selection box around the eyes.

Release your mouse button, and Photoshop fills the document window with the area you selected:

Photoshop zooms in on the selected area.

Step 2: Select The Lasso Tool

Next, we need to select the eyes so we're not affecting any other areas of the image. For that, we'll use the Lasso Tool. Select the Lasso Tool from the Tools palette, or press the letter L on your keyboard to quickly select it with the shortcut:

Select the Lasso Tool.

Step 3: Draw Selections Around The Eyes

With the Lasso Tool selected, drag a selection around one of the eyes. Don't worry if your selection outline isn't perfect since we'll clean things up later. Once you have the first eye selected, hold down your Shift key and draw a selection around the other eye. Holding down the Shift key will add the new selection to the previous one, allowing us to select both eyes at once:

Select the first eye, then hold down Shift and select the other.

We don't need the pupils in the center of the eyes selected, so let's remove them from the selection. Hold down your Alt (Win) /Option (Mac) key and drag around each pupil with the Lasso Tool. This will remove them from the selection, leaving us with only the colored area selected. Again, don't worry about being overly precise for now:

Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) and drag around the pupils to deselect them.

Step 4: Add A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

With the eyes now selected, we're ready to change their color! For that, we'll use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click on theNew Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (it's the circle split diagonally between black and white), then selectHue/Saturation from the list of adjustment layers that appears:

Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon and choose Hue/Saturation from the list.

Step 5: Select The "Colorize" Option

If you're using Photoshop CS4 as I am here, the options and controls for the Hue/Saturation dialog box will appear inside theAdjustments Panel which is new to CS4. In Photoshop CS3 and earlier, a Hue/Saturation dialog box will appear on your screen. Select the Colorize option by clicking inside its checkbox:

Select "Colorize".

As soon as you select Colorize, you'll see the eyes change color in the document window:

The eyes instantly change color.

Step 6: Adjust The Hue, Saturation And Lightness

To change the color, simply adjust the Hue, Saturation and Lightness options by dragging their sliders left or right. Hue will change the basic color, Saturation changes the saturation of the color, and Lightness affects the overall brightness. Be careful not to drag the Saturation or Lightness sliders too far to the right, though, since things can quickly become unnatural looking. The image in the document window will continually update as you move the sliders so you can see a live preview of the changes:

Dial in the color you want with the Hue, Saturation and Lightness sliders.

When you're happy with the new color of the eyes, click OK to exit out of the Hue/Saturation dialog box (Photoshop CS4 users can leave the Adjustments Panel open since there's no need to close it). Here's my image after changing the woman's eyes from blue to green:

The Hue/Saturation adjustment makes it easy to select any color you want for the eyes.

Posted in: photo editing