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Open Image

Open an image in Photoshop, or grab the stock photo I’m using (from StockByte.com) below.

Zoom In

First, zoom in on your image. Focus on the lips (if you’re using this photo) so that you can easily select the shape of them using the lasso tool. I’ve zoomed in to about 460%. To make life a bit easier, make sure that you use the magnetic lasso tool (right-click the lasso tool and choose magnetic lasso) – this tool will follow the direction of your cursor and cling to the color you began by clicking on.

New Layer & Fill

Be careful not to lose your selection. Create a new layer (layer, new, new layer) On the new layer, fill the selection with the color of your choice by using the paint bucket and clicking anywhere inside the selection.

Deselect

De-select the lips by zooming back out to 100%, grabbing the magic wand, and clicking anywhere in the gray area outside the canvas. (Or go to “Select, Deselect”)

Naturalize

Now to make it look natural. Directly below your “Layers” text in the Layers Palette is a selection box with the word “Normal” selected. Clicking the down arrow beside this word will reveal a group of options, including “Multiply, Screen, Overlay” etc. Using different options will create different effects – for this type of effect, your best bets are “Overlay”, “Color”, or “Hue” depending on which you like best. You’ll end up with a completely changed, but entirely undetectable, pair of colored lips.

Optional Extra

Beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it? But there is more that you can do! Following the same steps, you can replace the color of absolutely anything you can get your marquee tool around. Below is the final image I created, by adding a new layer behind the lips layer – but above the original photo layer – and placing the layer mode of this new layer to “color”. Nice, if I do say so myself :)