How to change the color of something in a picture
To change the color of something in a picture, pick the color you want to change, set a tolerance so every shade of it is caught, and shift those pixels to the new color while keeping their light and dark parts. If other things in the picture share that color, select the object first, then change its hue.
Fastest route: open Recolor Image, click the color in your picture, choose the new one and download.
Two ways to do it
| Method | How it picks the area | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| By color | Every pixel close enough to the color you click | Logos, flat graphics, clothing or objects in a color nothing else shares |
| By selection | Whatever you select: the object, not the color | Photos where the same color also appears somewhere you want to keep |
Recolor Image works by color. A photo editor such as Photoshop works by selection: Adobe's help page has you select the object with the Quick Selection tool, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer so the selection becomes its mask, then move the Hue and Saturation sliders.
How to change a color, step by step
- Click the color to change, in the picture itself or in the list of main colors.
- Choose what happens to it: Replace it with a new color, Make transparent to remove it, or Keep only this to turn everything else grey.
- Pick the new color, or type its hex code.
- Raise the tolerance until the highlight covers the whole object: its shadows and highlights are lighter and darker versions of the color and need to be caught too.
- Add a soft edge if the border looks cut out, so the change fades out over the edge pixels.
- Download as PNG if you made anything transparent; JPG has no transparency.
Keep the shading, or it looks painted on
A red shirt isn't one red. It's dozens of reds, from the shadow in a fold to the highlight on the shoulder. Paint all of them one flat blue and the shirt loses its folds.
Recolor Image's Keep shading and texture option moves every matched pixel by the same step in CIELAB, a color space built around lightness. The step is the distance from the color you picked to the new color. Dark pixels stay dark and light ones stay light, so folds, shadows and gradients survive in the new color. Adobe's page makes the same point: leave the Lightness slider at 0 to keep the contrast.
How tolerance decides what "the same color" is
Tolerance is the largest color difference that still counts as a match. Recolor Image measures that difference with CIEDE2000 (Delta E 2000), a standard color-difference formula. Its implementation gives the same answers as Sharma's published test data for all 34 test pairs, to within 0.00005. Some pairs worked out with that same code:
| Color 1 | Color 2 | Delta E 2000 |
|---|---|---|
| White #FFFFFF | Off-white #FAFAFA | 1.0 |
| White #FFFFFF | Light grey #F0F0F0 | 3.0 |
| White #FFFFFF | Grey #E0E0E0 | 6.5 |
| Red #FF0000 | Slightly darker red #E60000 | 5.4 |
| Red #FF0000 | Darker red #CC0000 | 11.0 |
| Red #FF0000 | Dark red #990000 | 21.1 |
| Red #FF0000 | Orange #FF8000 | 21.2 |
| Purple #5337E1 | Green #1FA971 | 55.5 |
Look at the reds. Dark red #990000 and orange #FF8000 are almost the same distance from pure red. A tolerance big enough to catch a red object's deep shadows also starts to catch nearby oranges. When that happens, lower the tolerance and add a second change for the shadows, or select the object in a photo editor instead.
Recolor Image starts at a tolerance of 20 with a soft edge of 8. Raise it for photos and JPGs, whose colors vary more; lower it for flat graphics.
Do it with the free Recolor Image tool
- Open Recolor Image and choose a JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF.
- Click the color to change, choose Replace, Make transparent or Keep only this, and set the tolerance with the pink highlight on.
- Add more colors if you need to, then download as PNG or JPG.
It runs in your browser: your picture isn't uploaded, and there's no watermark. It works by color and doesn't use AI.
Open Recolor ImageFAQ
How do I change the colors within an image?
Pick the color, choose the new one and set a tolerance that catches all its shades. Recolor Image does this in the browser. For several colors, add one change per color; each is matched against the original picture.
How can I recolor only a specific part of an image?
If that part is the only place the color appears, recolor by color. If the same color is elsewhere too, lower the tolerance until only your part is caught, or use a photo editor's selection tools and a Hue/Saturation adjustment, as Adobe describes for Photoshop.
How do I change the color of an object in a picture on my iPhone?
Open Recolor Image in Safari, tap Choose image, tap the object's color in the picture and pick the new color, then Download. No app to install.
How do I remove a color from an image?
Click the color and choose Make transparent. Those pixels get an alpha of zero, which PNG treats as fully transparent, so download as PNG. A JPG would fill them with white.
How do I make a picture black and white except one color?
Click the color to keep and choose Keep only this. Everything else turns grey at the same brightness. Add another change to keep a second color.
Why does the new color look flat or fake?
The tool painted every match one color, so the shading is gone. Turn on Keep shading and texture. If the edge looks jagged, raise the soft edge a little.
Related
Sources
Each page below was read on 27 October 2026. The Delta E values in the table were computed with Recolor Image's own color code, which agrees with all 34 test pairs in Sharma's CIEDE2000 data to within 0.00005.
- Adobe Help, Replace object colors by applying a Hue or Saturation adjustment. Select the object with Quick Selection, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, move Hue and Saturation; Colorize if the old color tints the new one. Last updated 23 February 2026. Rendered in a browser.
- G. Sharma, W. Wu, E. N. Dalal, The CIEDE2000 Color-Difference Formula: Implementation Notes, Supplementary Test Data, and Mathematical Observations. Color Research and Application 30(1), 2005, with the published test data used to check the tool's formula.
- W3C, PNG Specification (Third Edition), §4.2. Alpha "zero means fully transparent". W3C Recommendation, 24 June 2025.