Photoshop CS2 Basics Lesson 3 Exercise: Create a Custom Swatch Collection

By Sue Chastain, About.com Guide

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.

Previous

• Creating a Swatch Collection from an Image
• Converting the Image to Indexed Color Mode
• View and Save the Color Table
• Loading the Colors into the Swatches Palette
• About Swatch File Formats

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