Rather than being stuck with a single color scheme for your logo, you can quickly change the color with Photoshop. There are a variety of simple color-changing techniques in the program, and they work exceptionally well for logos. With just a few clicks, you can add a new color to your logo and be ready to show it off to the world.
The easiest way to change the color of a logo is to apply a Color Overlay. After making sure your logo is a PNG file with a transparent background, double click on the logo layer to open the Layer Styles dialogue box. Select “Color Overlay” from the styles menu and choose the new color for your logo. Click OK to commit to your changes and apply the updated logo color.
Before you try to change the color of a logo in Photoshop, you need to make sure it’s a PNG file with a transparent background. That means that there’s no white background attached to the logo itself.
If you have a white background around your logo, you can quickly remove it using the tips outlined here.
Once your logo has a transparent background, you’re ready to get started with either of the two methods outlined below!
Video Tutorial
Option 1: Using A Color Overlay
The color overlay method works best if you want to apply a completely different color to your logo. For example, if your logo is black and you want to make it red, then using a color overlay will be the easiest. This technique directly applies the new color over your logo, so there’s not much refining involved.
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Open The Layer Styles Dialogue Box
With your logo opened in Photoshop, first, make sure it has a transparent background. You can easily tell by looking at the logo’s layer thumbnail. In this case, there is no white behind the logos thumbnail, only a grey, and white checkerboard. This indicates it’s transparent!
For this technique to work, transparent backgrounds are crucial. If you still have a white background behind your logo, click here to learn how to remove it.
To open your Layer Styles, simply double-click on your logo layer.
A new window will appear called the Layer Styles Dialogue Box.
Step 2: Select “Color Overlay”
Within the Styles menu, check off the “Color Overlay” style.
If your settings didn’t automatically change, simply click on the words “Color Overlay” to reveal their settings.
Step 3: Choose A New Logo Color
First, make sure the blend mode is set to “Normal” and the opacity at 100%.
Then click on the color overlay box.
A color palette will appear that you can choose any color you’d like from. If you want to copy a certain color in your image, you can click anywhere on your canvas to sample a color.
Once you have a new color picked, click OK to apply the color overlay to the logo.
Now you’re left with a newly colored logo made with the help of Photoshop!
How To Isolate Where The New Logo Color Is Applied
If you have text in your logo as I do, it’s unlikely that you want everything to be the same color. In this case, I only want the emblem to be the new color while the text remains untouched. With the help of a layer mask, this can be fixed in seconds.
First, start by duplicating your logo layer by selecting it and pressing Command + J (Mac) or Control + J (PC).
With the new layer selected, right-click on the FX icon and choose “Clear Layer Style.”
Your logo will be converted back to normal, while the underlying layer has the color adjustments added.
Next, add a layer mask to the duplicated logo layer.
Then select the Brush Tool (B) and set the foreground color to black.
With the layer mask selected, begin to paint over the parts of your logo that you want the color to appear. In this case, I’ll paint black over the icon of my logo. This will make that area of the layer transparent, allowing the newly colored logo from underneath to show through.
Once your mask adjustments are made, you have successfully changed the color of a logo selectively!
You can use this same process for adding a secondary color to your logo as well. Rather than deleting the layer style, you can update the color overlay, then use a layer mask so it only appears in certain places.
Option 2: Using A Hue Saturation Adjustment Layer
This second method works best if you want to make mostly hue adjustments to your logo. This doesn’t work very well for changing black or white into color. However, it works extremely well for turning one color into another color.
For example, the icon is a bright blue with my logo, so it will be easy to change this color. On the other hand, the black text won’t change with this type of adjustment.
With that in mind, let’s break down how to do this technique:
Step 1: Create A Hue Saturation Adjustment Layer
To start things off, create a new hue saturation adjustment layer above the logo layer.
You can create this adjustment via the adjustments panel or the bottom of the Layers panel.
Step 2: Adjust The Master Hue Sliders
The first thing you see when you open the hue saturation adjustment layer is the Master tab. This is home to all the global hue, saturation, and luminance adjustments for your logo.
Since you want to change color, start by adjusting the hue slider to change your logo’s hue.
To customize the color even further, adjust the saturation and luminance sliders as needed.
With only two steps, you’ve changed your logo’s color with the hue saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop!
If you only want to change colors while leaving blacks or whites untouched, this is the easiest method.
How To Selectively Apply Hue Adjustments To Your Logo
Let’s say you have two colors in your logo, but you only want these hue adjustments to affect one of the colors. Since you are using an adjustment layer, it’s extremely easy to mask out any color adjustment you don’t like.
With the hue saturation adjustment layer mask selected, grab your Brush Tool (B) and set black to your foreground color.
Making sure that the adjustment layer mask is selected, paint over the parts of your logo you don’t want the new color applied. Since you’re using a layer mask, this will make the hue adjustments invisible wherever you paint.
Once complete, you’ll only see the hue adjustments in the parts of the mask that are still visible. Now just export your logo as a PNG and you’re all done!
So now that you know how to change the color of a logo in Photoshop, the sky’s the limit for the looks you can create. Whether you’re looking to rebrand or get a variety of logo colors for new merchandise, Photoshop makes it easy.
If you want to change all the colors in your logo (including black and white), then the Color Overlay method will be your best bet. However, if you only want to adjust the already colored areas of your logo, the Hue Saturation Adjustment Layer keeps things a little more streamlined. Regardless, they both offer a great solution for changing the color of a logo in Photoshop!
To see more ways of changing colors in Photoshop, check out the tutorials below:
- How To Change The Color Of ANYTHING In Photoshop
- How To Change Black Into Color In Photoshop
- How To Change The Color Of Text In Photoshop
Happy Editing,
Brendan 🙂
