System and method for changing hair color in digital images

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-readable instructions for digital hair coloring, wherein execution of said computer-readable instructions by one or more processors causes said one or more processors to:

• obtain a starting image of a subject including a hair region;
• calculate a matte defining a calculated foreground area of said starting image, wherein said calculated foreground area comprises said hair region, wherein said matte comprises an alpha mask composed of alpha values corresponding to each pixel of the starting image;
• obtain a target color distribution of a target hair color in an ellipsoidal volume of a three-dimensional color space;
• generate a recolored image by using nonlinear color transformation to map a starting color distribution of the matte to the target color distribution;
• and
• generate an output image from alpha blending of said recolored image with said starting image resulting in changing of color of said hair region.

A system for digitally coloring hair on an image comprising:

• computer memory comprising a stored set of instructions for digital hair coloring;
• and
• at least one microprocessor configured to process a starting image and digitally coloring hair on said starting image according to the stored set of instructions, the stored set of instructions configured to:
• obtain said starting image of a subject including a hair region;
• calculate a matte defining a calculated foreground area of said starting image, wherein said calculated foreground area comprises said hair region, wherein said matte comprises an alpha mask composed of alpha values corresponding to each pixel of the starting image;
• obtain a target color distribution of a target hair color in an ellipsoidal volume of a three-dimensional color space;
• generate a recolored image by using nonlinear color transformation to map a starting color distribution of the matte to the target color distribution;
• and
• generate an output image from alpha blending of said recolored image with said starting image resulting in changing of color of said hair region.