Creating color palettes with Photoshop

I have a new discovery to share with all of you! Yesterday I was messing around on Photoshop trying to find a specific color to match one I already had in a photo and found a way to make color palettes from photos I already have. It's so much fun!  Now, if you already know this super fun technique, I apologize. I am known to be a little behind when it comes to technology and most things involving the computer.  But if you'd want to learn how to do it, I have instructions below.

Here are some photos that I've taken and created color palettes for. 

Aren't they neat? It was so fun creating the palettes. I think having a color palette can be so useful for home decor. For instance, if you had trouble deciding what colors to add to a room, you could take a photo of the room and create a color palette from it.

The rest of this post is instructions on how I did this so if you're not interested in reading a confusing list of instructions, feel free to bid me adieu until next time!  For my blog friends, if after reading the instructions, you still can't figure it out but have a photo you'd like to create a palette for, feel free to email it to me and I'll do it for you and send it back!

Now, I am absolutely the last person you should ask about how to use Photoshop. Everything I ever do in Photoshop, I either ask Mr. H, find a YouTube tutorial or drive myself crazy trying to figure it out on my own which is how I discovered this. Usually after I figure out whatever it was I was trying to do, it leaves my brain so I never remember how to do anything. So this is as much for me as it is for you. I hope I don't leave out anything but if you find that I did, please let me know! I have Photoshop CS5 Extended so I'm not sure if the steps would be the same for other versions of Photoshop.

1) Open Photoshop and open up the photo you want to make a palette of

2) Under File, chose Save for Web & Devices
Your photo will pop up with swatches of colors to the right of it. Mine defaults as a GIF file so I just leave it.

3) The only setting I change is the "Colors" setting. It sets how many color swatches you will see. I chose 128, enough to get a good selection but not too much to be overwhelming

4) In the Color Table section on the right side of the table there is a Color Palette Menu. It looks like an upside down triangle with four lines by it. Click on this and select Save Color Table. Name your table and save it wherever you want. Click Done

5) Now you are back at your original photo. Go up to the Swatches tab (upper right of screen) and click on the drop down menu (the upside down triangle with 4 lines next to it) and select Load Swatches or Replace Swatches. Load Swatches will add your new palette to the ones already there. Replace Swatches will remove the ones already there and replace them with your new color palette.  I like Replace Swatches so I don't have to guess which are the new colors

6) Find where you saved your new color table. You may have to change the Files of type section at the bottom to .ACT. Click on the file.

Now you're ready to start creating your palette!

7) Choose the Rectangle Tool or whatever shape you want. I like the Rounded Rectangle Tool

8) Go to Swatches and chose your first color

9) Go to your photo. Make sure you are on the Background layer.  Click and drag the shape to however you want it. When you let go, the color will fill in

10) Repeat with each color you add. Make sure you click on the Background layer after each new color you choose because as you add colors, a new layer is created and it won't let you change the color if you're not on the Background layer

11) When you are done, save it as you normally would save any photo 

12) If you chose Replace Swatches in step 5, remember to Reset Swatches when you are done or the next person using Photoshop will wonder what happened to the colors. Do this by going up to the Swatches tab and clicking on the drop down menu. Select Reset Swatches. It will ask you "Replace current color swatches with the default colors?" Click OK.