Creating a Swatch Collection from an Image
This exercise is part of Adobe Photoshop CS2 Basics Lesson 3: Image Modes & Color Selection
One use for a custom swatch collection is to restrict yourself to specific collection of colors. If you have an image with the colors you want to use, you can use the eyedropper tool to select colors from your image, then add them to the swatch palette and make a custom swatch collection one color at a time.
If that sounds time consuming to you, you'll be glad to know that you can create a custom swatch collection from the colors in an existing image. This exercise will show you how.
We'll use this plaid pastel pattern as the basis for our swatch collection. Save this image to your computer and open it in Photoshop.
Converting the Image to Indexed Color Mode
The image opens in RGB color mode. In order to create a swatch collection from an image, we must first convert it to a indexed palette image. Since this is a fairly simple image, I don't want to be overwhelmed with too many colors, so I'm also going to use the indexed color conversion to reduce the color palette down to 64 colors.
To do this, go to the Image menu and choose Mode > Indexed Color.
The indexed color dialog box appears.
You can read more about the options in the dialog in the online help, but for this exercise, just make the following selections:
? Palette: Local (Perceptual)
? Colors: 64
? Forced: None
? Transparency: unchecked
? Dither: None
(To learn more about these options, see the topic "Conversion options for indexed-color images" in Photoshop Help.)
Click OK, and the image is converted to indexed color mode, although it probably won't look any different to you.
View and Save the Color Table
Now go to Image > Mode > Color Table to view the limited 64-color palette based on this image.
To save the swatches for future use press the Save button. Give the file a name and remember what folder you saved it to on your computer, then cancel out of the color table dialog.
Color Tables are saved with an ACT extension. You can store the files anywhere and load them from the Swatches Palette menu. Go to the swatches palette now and choose "Replace Swatches..." from the palette menu.
By default, Photoshop expects an ACO file extension for swatch collections, so in order to load the ACT file you'll need to change the "Files of type:" menu in the file browser dialog to look for ACT files.
Click the menu for "Files of type:" and change it from Swatches (*.ACO) to Color Table (*.ACT). Then navigate to where you saved the ACT file earlier and load it.
Your new color collection will open in the swatches palette.
For reasons unknown to me, Adobe does not allow you to save directly to a Swatches files from the color table dialog, but once the color table is opened in the Swatches palette you can save it back out again as a Swatches file. If you save the file to the "...Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Color Swatches" folder on your computer, it will be listed by name at the bottom of the the Swatches palette menu the next time you start Photoshop.
Adobe has two formats for Swatch files.
If you choose Save Swatches from the Swatches palette menu, you will get an ACO file which is compatible with Photoshop only.
If you want to save a swatch file that you can use in any Adobe CS2 application, select Save Swatches For Exchange from the Swatches palette menu. This will give you a file with an ASE extension that can be shared among other Adobe CS2 applications.
After saving your swatches, you can reset swatch colors, replace, or load a new swatch collection from the palette menu.
This exercise is part of Adobe Photoshop CS2 Basics Lesson 3: Image Modes & Color Selection
One use for a custom swatch collection is to restrict yourself to specific collection of colors. If you have an image with the colors you want to use, you can use the eyedropper tool to select colors from your image, then add them to the swatch palette and make a custom swatch collection one color at a time.
If that sounds time consuming to you, you'll be glad to know that you can create a custom swatch collection from the colors in an existing image. This exercise will show you how.
We'll use this plaid pastel pattern as the basis for our swatch collection. Save this image to your computer and open it in Photoshop.
Converting the Image to Indexed Color Mode
The image opens in RGB color mode. In order to create a swatch collection from an image, we must first convert it to a indexed palette image. Since this is a fairly simple image, I don't want to be overwhelmed with too many colors, so I'm also going to use the indexed color conversion to reduce the color palette down to 64 colors.
To do this, go to the Image menu and choose Mode > Indexed Color.
The indexed color dialog box appears.
You can read more about the options in the dialog in the online help, but for this exercise, just make the following selections:
? Palette: Local (Perceptual)
? Colors: 64
? Forced: None
? Transparency: unchecked
? Dither: None
(To learn more about these options, see the topic "Conversion options for indexed-color images" in Photoshop Help.)
Click OK, and the image is converted to indexed color mode, although it probably won't look any different to you.
View and Save the Color Table
Now go to Image > Mode > Color Table to view the limited 64-color palette based on this image.
To save the swatches for future use press the Save button. Give the file a name and remember what folder you saved it to on your computer, then cancel out of the color table dialog.
Color Tables are saved with an ACT extension. You can store the files anywhere and load them from the Swatches Palette menu. Go to the swatches palette now and choose "Replace Swatches..." from the palette menu.
By default, Photoshop expects an ACO file extension for swatch collections, so in order to load the ACT file you'll need to change the "Files of type:" menu in the file browser dialog to look for ACT files.
Click the menu for "Files of type:" and change it from Swatches (*.ACO) to Color Table (*.ACT). Then navigate to where you saved the ACT file earlier and load it.
Your new color collection will open in the swatches palette.
For reasons unknown to me, Adobe does not allow you to save directly to a Swatches files from the color table dialog, but once the color table is opened in the Swatches palette you can save it back out again as a Swatches file. If you save the file to the "...Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Color Swatches" folder on your computer, it will be listed by name at the bottom of the the Swatches palette menu the next time you start Photoshop.
Adobe has two formats for Swatch files.
If you choose Save Swatches from the Swatches palette menu, you will get an ACO file which is compatible with Photoshop only.
If you want to save a swatch file that you can use in any Adobe CS2 application, select Save Swatches For Exchange from the Swatches palette menu. This will give you a file with an ASE extension that can be shared among other Adobe CS2 applications.
After saving your swatches, you can reset swatch colors, replace, or load a new swatch collection from the palette menu.