How to change your hairstyle in a photo

Gemini is Google's AI assistant, and it can edit a photo you add to a chat. Google's own help page names seeing yourself with different hairstyles as one of the things its image model is good for. Because you describe the change in words, you are not limited to a list: a particular cut, a fringe, a length or a colour, or several at once.

Nothing needs installing on an iPhone, because gemini.google.com works in Safari as well as in the app. PhotoTune's hair tools also send the photo to one of Google's Gemini models, so what separates the two is what you can ask for and what happens to the photo afterwards.

PhotoTune keeps its hair tools in the editor's AI group. Haircuts changes the cut, to one of twelve: Shorter, Layered, Long layers, Bob, Curtain bangs, Pixie, Shag, Wolf cut, Fade, Undercut, Textured crop or Buzz. Hairstyles keeps the length and changes how it is worn: Tied back, Straight, Waves or Parted. Color changes only the colour, to Darker, Lighter, Black, Blonde, Auburn or Silver. Beards and Eyebrows sit beside them.

You choose rather than type. Each choice becomes a request our service writes, which asks the model to change only the hair and to keep your face shape, bone structure and skin texture as they are. These are AI tools, so tapping Apply sends that photo to our editing service, which passes it to Google's Gemini and returns the result. We do not store the photo, and nothing is sent until you tap.

An AI haircut is a picture of what a model expects that cut to look like on someone with your face, made from one photo. It cannot see the back of your head. It does not know how thick your hair is, which way it grows, or what it does a week after a cut. Ask for a length or a texture you do not have, and it will draw one anyway.

So use the picture to decide what you like and to show what you mean, not to predict the result. Take it to a hairdresser with a photo of your hair as it is today, and ask whether that cut will work with your hair. Whether a shape suits your face is easier to judge on your own photo than on a chart of face shapes, and that is the part a preview is good for.

Some people searching for this want hair where a photo shows little: more length, a fuller fringe, a beard. That is where a preview is most a guess, because nothing in the photo shows how that hair would grow, so the model invents all of it.

PhotoTune has no option called add hair. The longest cuts, Long layers and Curtain bangs, ask for long hair, and Beards goes from Clean through Stubble and Short to Full. In Gemini you can ask for it in words. Either way, judge the result as a sketch.

If the question is which dye to buy, a brand's own try-on can be the better tool. L'Oréal Paris's hair colour virtual try-on, built with ModiFace, works live through the camera or on a selfie, lets you browse more than 200 of its shades, and has a compare view for a before and after. Its page says it detects your current hair colour to calibrate the shades to you, that live and selfie images are never stored, and that a patch test 48 hours before colouring is always advised.

It shows colour only, and only that brand's shades. PhotoTune's Color has six choices, from Darker to Silver, and Gemini will try any colour you can describe.

PhotoTune is an iPhone app; there is no Android or web version. Saving an edited photo needs a subscription, and the annual plan starts with 3 days free. The pricing page has every plan and what the trial turns into.

What this guide says about software other than PhotoTune comes from the pages below, read on the dates shown. The PhotoTune screenshots are captures of the app.