Carbon doping from a Ti precursor in TiO₂ synthesized by a hydrothermal method was studied. The structural, optical and morphological study of the deposited material was carried out using X-ray diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy characterization techniques. The elemental composition of the TiO₂ deposited with different precursor concentrations was studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The amount of elemental carbon in the TiO₂ matrix is found to be increased as the Ti precursor concentration is increased, which strengthens the proposed idea of carbon doping via a Ti precursor.