Color Reduction and Pattern Re-Coloring in Photoshop

rose pattern in millions of colors rose pattern in four colors rose pattern in three colors rose pattern in two colors

Course Documentation

The image below is a flow chart showing an overview of this site's page struture.

flow chart showing an overview of this site's page struture

Color reduction sequence of tasks

(As demonstrated in the training videos)

Section 1

  1. Open Photoshop
  2. Basic UI review
    1. F keys
    2. Tab key
    3. Basic zoom functions
  3. Establish our Workspace

Section 2

  1. Download file from section 2 webpage
  2. Open file
  3. Explore Photoshop’s Index Color setting options;
    1. Exact – will be grayed out
    2. System (Windows)
    3. Web
    4. Uniform
    5. Local (Perceptual)
    6. Local (Selective)
    7. Local (Adaptive)
    8. Master (Perceptual)
    9. Master (Selective)
    10. Master (Adaptive)
    11. Custom
    12. Previous
    13. Dither
      1. Diffusion
      2. Pattern
      3. Noise

Section 3

  1. Perform first reduction – 24 Colors Local Selective
    1. Why not just take it down to 4 colors? (Explain incremental reduction)
  2. Click OK
  3. Perform a File > Save as…

Section 4

  1. Perform second reduction
    1. Examine color table
    2. Identify colors that are very close in hue and saturation
    3. Open a color (Click it on the color table)
    4. Copy the hex value from the color picker
    5. Open the color closest to that color in hue and saturation
    6. Paste the “hex” value into the color picker
    7. Close the color picker
    8. Repeat this process as needed for each color that is close to each other in hue and saturation (use keyboard)
  2. Change the document color mode to from Index Color to RGB
  3. Change the document color mode to Index Color…
  4. Apply these settings:
    1. Exact and Forced: None (This will show the number of colors that we reduced to 12)
  5. Click OK

Section 5

  1. Perform second reduction
    1. Examine color table
    2. Identify colors that are very close in hue and saturation
    3. Open a color (Click it on the color table)
    4. Copy the hex value from the color picker
    5. Open the color closest to that color in hue and saturation
    6. Paste the “hex” value into the color picker
    7. Close the color picker
    8. Repeat this process as needed for each color that is close to each other in hue and saturation (use keyboard)
  2. Change the document color mode to from Index Color to RGB
  3. Change the document color mode to Index Color…
  4. Apply these settings:
    1. Exact and Forced: None (This will show the number of colors that we reduced to 6)
  5. Click OK

Section 6

  1. Perform third reduction
    1. Examine color table
    2. Identify colors that are very close in hue and saturation
    3. Open a color (Click it on the color table)
    4. Copy the hex value from the color picker
    5. Open the color closest to that color in hue and saturation
    6. Paste the “hex” value into the color picker
    7. Close the color picker
    8. Repeat this process as needed for each color that is close to each other in hue and saturation (use keyboard)
  2. Change the document color mode to from Index Color to RGB
  3. Change the document color mode to Index Color…
  4. Apply these settings:
    1. Exact and Forced: None (This will show the number of colors that we reduced to 4)
  5. Click OK

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