Create Custom Color Swatches in Photoshop Elements
It’s Karla Dudley here talking about all about custom colors! There are many times when I want create a custom color pallet for my designs or layouts & projects. I may want to draw inspiration from an add or website, photograph, layout + more! No matter the case, being able to create and save your own swatches in Photoshop can be a really useful technique not only for making layouts but for design as well. Today I’m going to show you how to make your own custom color swatches from an image within Photoshop Elements. (I’m using PSE 10 for this tutorial)
1.) Open the image you want to make your custom colors from. In this case I’m choosing a layout I did a while back.
2.) Duplicate your image by going to File > Duplicate. This will make a copy so you can preserve you original.
3.) Change the color mode by going to Image > Mode > Indexed Color. (If your image is already in Indexed Color then change it to RBG color and back to Indexed Color again.) The Indexed Color window will open up.
Use the setting as above with the color option going all the way to 256 colors. But most likely you will want to work with fewer colors so for this example I changed the color count to 30.
4.) Next go to Image > Mode > Color Table. The Color Table window with all your color swatches will open
5.) Super rad right? Now we need to save these swatches so we can use them. Click on Save and save the .act file in your presets folder.
Windows
c: > Program Files > Adobe > Photoshop Elements > Presets > Color Swatches
Mac
Applications > Adobe Photoshop Elements > Support Files > Presets > Color Swatches
6.) Load your swatches to your swatch pallet. First open your swatch pallet if it’s not already open by going to Window > Color Swatches. Open the fly-out window via the top right and select Load Swatches
Find your swatches and your all set! To Load your swatches will add them to the bottom of the swatches you already have. If you want to only have your custom swatches loaded (showing) then select Replace Swatches.
That’s it! I hope you enjoy playing with colors your way! And until next time,
Happy Scrappin!
