Color Picker vs. Color Swatches vs.

Color Table
By Hummie

The use of words in PSE is often confusing. What is the difference between the color
picker, color swatches, and color table?

The color picker is the most commonly used of the three as it is inevitable that
newbies will stumble on a need to use it to creating most layouts. It is covered in
several other tutorials (see the hue/saturation/value tutorial). Since it is covered well in
other tutorials, no more detail will be provided here.

The color swatches are a means to save favorite or most used colors to reuse
over and over again.

The color table is a means to obtain colors from a graphic.

COLOR SWATCHES

The default settings for PSE do not have the Color

Swatches visible.

From the Windows drop down menu, click on

Color Swatches and a box will appear on the
desktop containing the default color swatches.

The box is bothersome and in the way! To

place it in the Palette Bin, click on the
“More” flyout arrow and then click on “Place
in Palette Bin.”

Nothing happens, right? Right.

Click on the “x’ above the “More” flyout to close the box and the
swatches will move to the Palette Bin. The next time PSE is
opened, the Color Swatches will appear in the same place.

To use the Color Swatches, move the mouse over the box at any
time and the mouse will turn to the eyedropper icon. Click on
any color and the foreground color will be converted to that color.

To add a color to the

Swatches, use the Color Picker
or eyedropper tools to place
the desired color as the
foreground color. Hold the
mouse over a grey (blank) box
in the Swatches and the paint
tool will appear. Click with the
mouse. (Or click with the
mouse on the new swatch icon
next to the trash can at the
bottom of the Swatches box.)

A box will pop up. Change the name of the

color, if preferred, and click OK. The new
swatch will appear at the bottom of the
Swatches.
Adobe provides a few other Color Swatches, although I do not find them useful. To load
a different Color Swatches, click on the “More” flyout arrow and click on “Load Color
Swatches.” The pop up box is set to default to the file on your drive where the Adobe
Color Swatches are located. Click on one of them and then click “Load.” The new
Color Swatches will appear in the Palette Bin.

Color Swatches end with the file name extension of .aco.

To find free swatches on the internet, do a search. There are some available at Adobe
Exchange for free. (http://www.adobe.com/exchange/) or
(http://www.share.studio.adobe.com) Log into a free account to download from this
site.

Upload a photo at Big Huge Labs

(http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/colors.php)
to create a color swatch from a photo.
These swatches download as an Adobe
Swatch Exchange (ASE) file. When
loading these files, choose the file type
in the drop down menu.

At Color Blender (http://colorblender.com/), palettes are created and may be

downloaded as a Color Table file (.act) which can also be loaded by choosing the same
in the drop down menu.
Adobe Kuler (http://kuler.adobe.com) is another popular place to create and obtain color
swatches. You must be logged in to download the files. This login is the same as that
created for Adobe Exchange as indicated above. Downloads are .ase files.

Colour Lovers (http://www.colourlovers.com/) offers downloads in a variety of formats.

There are various software programs which create color schemes from your desktop.
Be sure to view the links list on my site for more resources.

Download my Color Swatch favorite colors. Do not put the Color Swatches in the Adobe
files on your hard drive. Create a folder on the hard drive called “Color Swatches”
which is regularly backed up.

To load Color Swatches, navigate to the folder you have created from the Load pop up
box.

CREATING COLOR SWATCHES

It is easy to create your own collections, such as Christmas

colors, Fall colors, Spring colors, Bright colors, Pastel
Colors.

First, a blank swatch file must be prepared. Click with the

mouse on a swatch and drag it to the trash can. Click okay
in the deletion popup box. A much quicker way to achieve
this is to hold down the alt key while hovering with the
mouse over the swatch to see a scissor icon. Click with the
mouse to delete the swatch.

In general, deleting colors from the Color Swatch is safe. Colors are only permanently
deleted when you try to switch to another Color Swatch and choose to save the
changes from the pop up box. However, sometimes things go wonky or mistakes
happen. It is best to utilize the form swatch as indicated below.
 Add a few colors to the Color
Swatches. Click on the
“More” flyout arrow and click
on “Save Color Swatches.”
Navigate to the folder you
created for Color Swatches,
give the file a new File Name,
and click on Save.

Continue to add more

swatches and save the
changes when finished.

I do not like deleting the swatches to

prepare a new file again and again and,
therefore, I have a “Blank Form” .aco file
with only a black and a white swatch within.

In the folder on my hard drive where the

swatches are located, copy the Blank Form
file and rename it to a title applicable to the
new swatch. Load the swatch in PSE and
add colors to it.

I have provided my file for your

convenience to download.

Place this file in the Presets folder:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop
Elements 7.0\Presets\Color Swatches
COLOR TABLE

The Color Table is a tool to obtain colors from a photo or graphic to make a Color
Swatch.

The most direct way to obtain colors from a photo to match a layout is to use the
eyedropper tool. However, another fun way is to create an entire table of colors to
choose from. Shh…I have been known to see kits in my favorite colors and use the
previews to create a color table.

To create a Color Table from a graphic

(photo), the file must be in the “Indexed
Color” format. Files with the .gif extension
utilize the Indexed Color format.

Open a .gif file. Click on the Image drop

down menu, clicks on Mode, and observe
that there is a checkmark in front of
“Indexed Color.”

The Indexed Color format consists of 256

colors which are each assigned a number.

When a .jpg photo is opened up, you will note

that it is most likely in the RGB Color format.

I am using a photo of the marching band as I

often create layouts of the band.

In order to create a Color Table, change the

format to Indexed Color by clicking on the
Image drop down menu, clicking on Mode, and
then clicking on Indexed Colors.
 A popup box will appear. The first drop down
menu is for the “Palette” choices.

Although others recommend choosing the

“Local (Perceptual),” I believe that it is not all
that important which one is chosen.

Both the “Perceptual” and the “Selective”

prioritize colors to those which are more
sensitive to the human eye. However, the
Selective also focuses on colors that are web
safe and is a broader range of colors.

“Adaptive” creates a table of colors that are most commonly found in the image. I found
this choice the most practical for the purposes of a layout. For instance, a photo of a
school uniform would pick up a table of colors most common in the photo, that being the
school colors.

All in all, any of these three will produce a satisfactory table.

To control the colors that appear in the table, crop out of the photo areas of color that
are not wanted before converting the image to Indexed Color.

In the Colors field, leave it as 256 colors. As

you will recall, Indexed Color formats are
made up of 256 colors and, therefore, this is
the maximum number for this field. If a lower
number is entered in this field, the table will
contain fewer colors.

Change the Forced, Matte, and Dither fields

to “none.”

Uncheck the box next to Transparency. Click

OK.
 Go back to the Image drop
down menu/Mode and click
on Color Table.

The new Color Table will pop

up.

Click on the save icon and

navigate to the folder on your
hard drive for swatches.

Color Tables are saved with

an .act extension, rather than
an .aco extension for Color
Swatches.

From the “More” flyout arrow

in the Color Swatches
palette, click to load this new
Color Table. Navigate to the
file on the hard drive. Change the “Files of type” to “color Table (*ACT)” to see the file
within the folder.

Once the Color Table is loaded, resave it as a Color Swatch (.aco). Click here to
download the Color Swatch I created using this tutorial.