Color Swatches & Image Palette from a photo

~ This tutorial assumes you are familiar with the tools in PSP ~
It was written on August 22, 2008, using PSP 9, but it can be completed in most versions.
Tutorials are only guidelines, it's always fun to experiment with different settings on your own : )
 

~ It's a good idea to read through each step before doing them ~

Supplies needed:
2 photo's/images of your choice.
One that you want to extract the colors from.
One that you want to apply those colors to.


Step 1:
Open the photo/image you would like to extract the colors from.
Duplicate it by holding down the Shift key and hitting the letter 'D' on your keyboard.
Close the original.

This is a sample of the image I used, I love the warm autumn colors this image contains.
(The original size was 450x338)


Effects > Distortion effects > pixelate
Set the block width and height to a size that you like, see below.

Here is how I set mine, but you may need to adjust your settings, depending on the size of
your original image.  Because mine was 450x338, 28 worked for me.



I now have my autumn color swatches that I can use in other projects.
Duplicate this file (shift D), save the duplicate copy to your computer for later use, then close it.
(I created a folder called 'my swatches' and saved this file there. )


Step 2:
Now we'll create an image palette from the remaining copy.

Go up to Image > Decrease color depth > 256 colors (8bit).
Select 'Optimized Medium Cut' and 'Nearest color', hit ok.

Image > Palette > Save palette.  Name your palette and click save.
(You can click on the 'Edit Paths' button to specify which folder the file is being saved to).

I saved mine to the default PSP folder located in 'my documents'.



You can close this image after it's saved.


Step 3:
Now for the fun part!
Open your 2nd photo in PSP (the one you want to apply the above palette colors to).
Duplicate it, close the original.

Follow the steps below:
1) Image > Palette > Load Palette.
Load the palette we just created above, check Nearest color matching. 
If a box pops up asking you if you want to flatten image, click 'yes'.

Your image should change to the colors in the palette.
The effect looks a little rough to me, so let's try to soften the effect.
(You may need to adjust the below settings, depending on your image)

2) Layers/duplicate, hide the duplicate layer by clicking on the eye next to it.
On the bottom layer, Effects > Softness > Soft Focus > Halo Medium.

(Here are the settings for the Halo Medium preset)


3) Unhide your duplicate layer and change the blend mode to Screen, lower opacity to 88.

4) It looks pretty good at this point, but if you would like it a little darker, go ahead and duplicate
the top layer.  Change the blend mode to Luminance, lower opacity to 30.

Here is a visual recap of the steps we just applied above:



Step 4:
Right click on any layer and select Merge > Merge Visible.
Save your image, and you are done!


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial; I would love to see your results.
You can send them to me at this email address: admin at suntiques.com