[Tutorial] PixaTool - Custom Palette
Things to know
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1.- Palettes are saved with presets
This means you can create all the 32 color palettes you want to be applied later.
2.- On load preset press "set" button to apply
"Set" button apply the custom palette and the "clear" button removes the custom palette to the previous.
3.- Posterize and custom palette at same time
Can work together, if you not want the posterize reduction just set this slider to the max.
4.- Custom palette is applied the last
To be sure the final image only will use the colors you want all effects, dither,etc... are applied before.
This means that if you move the "saturation" slider, this on will affect to the real image, not to the custom palette colors. So, the colors in custom palette will adapt in real time to that change.
How to use
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Click on a color slot and click in the image to select what color you want to add.
Look how the slot changes his color while you are over the image showing what color will be picked.
TIP: Hold "Control" while pick a color in the image to automatically set the next color to pick to make your palette faster without click again and again in the slot you want change.
RGB Sliders
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Select a color in the custom palette you already created and move the sliders to set exactly the color you want.
If the custom palette is set, wHile you are doing this, you can watch in real time how that modified color adapts to the image.
RGB Linked
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If you check this box the RGV sliders on the right will move at the same time.
Very useful when you simply want add light/dark values to a color instead of change this hue.
Dithering List
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In this case the dithering is applied at 1x. This mean no matter how much pixelation you set to the image, for example 8x, the bayer dither will applied in 1x pixels.
The Bayer 2x/4x/8x means how much intensity or gradient if you prefer you want on the image.
EXAMPLE
Comments
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Two quick questions:
- Is there a size limit for this, either in term sof image 'filesize' or image dimensions?
- can this utility handle transparency
In last version there is no option to pick colors form the image. But you can load/save/edit/create palettes until 192 colors. And no for transparency.
I ended up purchasing a copy of this tool by the way.
To clarify: what I meant by the first question is, is there a limit to the size of the image you can put in the tool? like if I put a very, very large image in this tool will it have problems?
Well all depends in what you mean about very large, i tried until 4k images and worked.
Hi There, i just bought you groovy tool. I like it very much, where i can download the c64 preset ?
https://imgur.com/gallery/MhzqHAX
Greets McM
There is the C64 palette already in the tool. To get the same effect set pixelation W to 8 and Pixelation H to 4. After that just play with bright and other values to get the final result.
Ok, thx ... works fine now ! ;)
So, the load a palette function doesn't work for me at all with the newest version. Just loads a blank palette. Also, neither does picking individual colors. Basically, the program doesn't work for me at all. Am I doing something wrong? I hit palette, load, pick a palette PNG, and nothing.
It supports only .Pal files.
Hi, is there something specific about these .pal files? Because they seem to be different from Microsoft .pal files that Photoshop can use. Photoshop won't load the .pal files from pixatool, and pixatool won't load .pal files saved in photoshop.
The .pal file format is from Paint shop pro. Are you tried the .pal files included in the tool? Maybe you can open with a text editor the ones saved with the tool and compare with the ones with photoshop to see the difference.
Maybe phosothop have some options to save the colors in .pal file that mess the structure?
Yeah, ok, these .pal files have a totally different structure. I can see the hex vales in your files, the .pal files from elsewhere are just garbled in a text editor, the file format must be really different.
EDIT: your files are JASC .pal, which PSP uses, and my files are Microsoft .pal, which Photoshop uses, and are totally different.
Most of the files I find online are MS .pal, it seems like not much except PSP uses JASC pal?
Trying to see if they can be converted.
https://www.gbadev.org/tools.php?showinfo=133 seems this does what I need! :)
Is there any way in selecting colors for my custom palette out of the image or do I have to "guess" them by using the sliders?
Right now I am doing a screenshot of the Image, exporting it to Photoshop to colorpick the correct RGB values which is a bit of a pain :-/
You can import your own custom pallete. Using the "load" button, it accepts .pal files.
Oh I see, thank you for the quick reply!
Btw Kron, is there any tutorial available on how to achieve a similar result like you have done with the female portrait on the PixaTool Main Page?
"Click on a color slot and click in the image to select what color you want to add."
Has this function been removed in v1.55? Impossible getting it to work.
Yep, on 1.55 you can load external palettes, until 192 colors or create news selection one slot and changing the slider values.
Is it still limited to 192 colors? That would be kind of unfortunate especially given many of the example palettes (Doom, Quake, etc.) are originally 256 colors :(
Yep i know, i added in the palette folders of pixatool an optimized paloettes of all that games in 192 colors, there is no really a big differnce and you can still get nice results. The 256 is hard due some GPU limitations that makes that if i allow 256 in some machines the tool not starts or crashes on startup :(
Hello,
May I ask what was the devilish plan behind removing the color picking? I used this tool (actually bought it years back) for a gamejam, and that version supported that function. On a later gamejam with a newer version I already couldn't use this tool (don't remember why exactly, maybe too much changes or this specific reason?...). Writeing in .pal files RGB values not too intuituve, or there is a separate program that supports this kinda workflow? I think it would be advisable to put back the possibility, with a separate toggle button or hotkey. Right now this tool doesn't support easy color palettes and I think it should.
Or at least please help me to point in the right direction, who can I create .pal files by picking colors, I never used these before. :)
Thanks!
You can use Aseprite, Paint SHop Pro, Photoshop, to load an image , and save the color palete in .pal format to be used in the tool.
Or you can create youw own colors using the RGB sliders there.
Thanks for your answer!
I tried saving .pal in photoshop (in cs6 and after putting the pic to 256 indexed color), but pixatool cannot open that specific .pal format. I checked the palette table in /palettes and I see
JASC-PAL
0100
256
0 0 0
I figured 256 is the number of colors and then start the RGB values. Photoshop saves me this:
RIFF PAL data (and gibberish so on :))
I will try Aseprite later maybe that will save the correct format.
I still have to say this method is not the best, as much as using the sliders. Of course I'm saying this as one who uses graphic softwares and used to color pickers. I really think a color picker would be useful. :)
Thank you!
I save .Pal files in Aseprite and Paint SHop Pro and they works perfect.
You can test pals form here too: https://lospec.com/palette-list . It allos to download .Pal files.
Same, they just don't work from photoshop. And since you can't seem to build palettes by hand in pixatool anymore I'm not sure what good the software is? If I have to use an external tool for color selection might as well use the other tool for palette application too right? Like photoshop? The only use this software was for me was manipulating the color choices easily on the fly. Huh.