Editing workflow · 6 min

How to recolor hair in a photo on iPhone

Published August 3, 2026

Hair recoloring works best as a short sequence: select the hair, choose a color direction, adjust the effect, correct difficult boundaries, compare with the original, and save a new copy.

Select one source photo

Open the system photo picker and choose a clear image with one main person. Local Hair Color receives that selected image rather than asking for broad photo-library access. A head-and-shoulders portrait with visible texture and reasonable contrast around the hair will usually need less correction.

Review the automatic selection before judging the color

The app runs a bundled hair-segmentation model on the device. That produces an initial mask: the region where the color effect will appear. Before deciding that a shade looks wrong, check whether the mask includes the intended hair and excludes nearby skin, clothing, and background.

A color can look uneven because the source lighting is uneven, because the intensity is too high, or because an area is missing from the selection. Identifying which issue you are seeing makes the next adjustment much faster.

Choose a curated shade or a custom color

Curated shades provide quick reference points across blonde, brunette, copper, auburn, burgundy, silver, rose gold, pink, blue, and related directions. Use them to find the broad family first. If you already know the hue you want, open the custom picker and use Apple’s grid, spectrum, or slider controls.

Adjust intensity without erasing the photograph

The intensity slider controls how strongly the selected color influences the hair. Start below the maximum and look for preserved highlights, shadows, and texture. Increase it when you need to see the hue more clearly; decrease it when the result overwhelms the source lighting.

Intensity is a visual control, not a measure of dye strength or processing time. A 60 percent preview has no direct chemical equivalent.

Add missed hair and remove spill

Open Refine Mask and choose Add Hair when a section of hair remains unchanged. Choose Remove Hair when the effect reaches the face, neck, clothing, accessory, or background. Use a small brush near the hairline and tight gaps, and a larger brush across broad areas.

Each stroke is a correction layered over the automatic mask. Undo mistakes one at a time. Reset to Automatic removes the manual corrections and returns to the original selection, so refinement remains reversible.

Compare the edit in the same frame

Turn on Compare and move the divider across important areas: the hairline, shoulders, ends, and any corrected boundary. The original and preview share the same pose and framing, which makes the color difference easier to isolate.

Turn Compare off when you want an unobstructed view of the result. It is an optional inspection tool, not a permanent part of the exported image.

Export without overwriting the source

Saving creates a new image in Photos. The source remains unchanged. The export removes GPS location, original filename, camera serial, and unrelated source metadata. If saving is unavailable, confirm Add Photos permission and available device storage.

Use the edit for planning, not prediction

A recolored photograph shows a visual direction under the lighting captured by the camera. It does not determine the formula, the need for lightening, the number of sessions, maintenance, or how porous or previously treated hair will respond. Take the finalist image to product instructions or a qualified colorist for those questions.