Indexed colors needed

[Aran]

Hello Team Affinity,

upfront I must say that you have some great apps, which I love using.

However there is always a function needed. Sometimes work-arounds might work, but in this case I think it is needed by many users.

In a future update it would be nice to see the option of indexed colors being implemented, as often there are projects which require a restricted number of predetermined colors.

Choose from own/defined colors, save the individual color palette and apply this to any kind of image, that would be a fantastic addition 🤩

With best regards

-Aran

Edited August 3, 2022 by Aran
orthographic errors

[GarryP]

If you are asking for what I think you are asking for then it sounds like a LUT (Look-Up Table) might be what you need.

If a LUT won’t do what you want then more explanation might be needed, maybe with some workflow examples.

[Komatös]

Hi @Aran

If I understand right, you would have a specific palette that represents the colours from e.g. a Company?

If so, you can create your own colour palettes, either as a programme palette or as a document palette.

And indexed is also possible by creating the colour palette from the document or from an existing file. Again, for the programme or for a document.

[Aran]

21 hours ago, GarryP said:

If you are asking for what I think you are asking for then it sounds like a LUT (Look-Up Table) might be what you need.

If a LUT won’t do what you want then more explanation might be needed, maybe with some workflow examples.

As far as I understand a LUT is more like a 'look' one can apply to an image. What I am seeking is a recacluation or even reduction of an image to a certain set amount of defined colors - I come from Photoshop and there was the option of creating an indexed color palette from eg self-determined colors and the one could apply this indexed color range to any image. Since I quit using PS I cannot make screenshots or a vid of what I mean in detail.

21 hours ago, Komatös said:

Hi @Aran

If I understand right, you would have a specific palette that represents the colours from e.g. a Company?

If so, you can create your own colour palettes, either as a programme palette or as a document palette.

And indexed is also possible by creating the colour palette from the document or from an existing file. Again, for the programme or for a document.

Thank you very much for the explanation and video 🙏

That helped me understand the swatches panel a bit more, now I can create own color palettes and even extract the colors from an image.

Still I don't get the difference between the program-, document- and systempalette. That is all the same if applied to a singe document or as a modus operandi for batch editing and as a global preference.

Still I would need to apply the created color palette to an image rather than from an image, there seems to be no option alike --- therefore the suggestion for implementing this option (or maybe there is actually a workaround?!)

[Pšenda]

6 hours ago, Aran said:

Still I don't get the difference between the program-, document- and systempalette.

https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Panels/swatchesPanel.html

[AdamStanislav]

On 8/3/2022 at 3:18 AM, Aran said:

Choose from own/defined colors, save the individual color palette and apply this to any kind of image, that would be a fantastic addition

But you can can create and save your own palettes. You can even export them and let the rest of us import them. Plenty of palettes exist on this forum, too.

[Pšenda]

6 minutes ago, AdamStanislav said:

But you can can create and save your own palettes.

I personally think that Affinity can do exactly what is required here. Or do we not understand what is required - for example, automatic degradation of the color range of the image to only those in the palette?

[Aran]

19 hours ago, Pšenda said:

https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Panels/swatchesPanel.html

Thanks for clarification 😀

 

18 hours ago, Pšenda said:

I personally think that Affinity can do exactly what is required here. Or do we not understand what is required - for example, automatic degradation of the color range of the image to only those in the palette?

Yes, saving and creating palettes is clear now thanks to your nice vid,

but still I am looking for exactly what you described here 'automatic degradation of the color range of any image to only those in the palette', that is what I tried to describe 👍

[Aran]

18 hours ago, AdamStanislav said:

But you can can create and save your own palettes. You can even export them and let the rest of us import them. Plenty of palettes exist on this forum, too.

I got the customized palettes, thanks. Still looking for applying the specific palettes to an image, reducing the colors to the palette colors.

Thanks.

[carl123]

38 minutes ago, Aran said:

but still I am looking for exactly what you described here 'automatic degradation of the color range of any image to only those in the palette

Pretty sure that's not possible at the moment 

[Aran]

On 8/5/2022 at 11:21 AM, carl123 said:

Pretty sure that's not possible at the moment 

That's what I understood with my research and therefore a straightforward suggestion to the developer team of Affinity

[Aran]

That's how this feature looks like in Gimp: https://docs.gimp.org/2.10/de/gimp-image-convert-indexed.html

 

[Winsome]

I believe it is this feature from Photoshop you are missing?

 

[Medical Officer Bones]

If you are on Windows, the best "colour indexer" is Color Quantizer. Free and nothing else really compares. Also happens to be the best PNG optimizer with masking tools to control quality on a local level.

http://x128.ho.ua/color-quantizer.html

[Aran]

9 hours ago, Winsome said:

I believe it is this feature from Photoshop you are missing?

 

I am working with pixel art and a narrow selection of colours.

I've managed to create an indexed colour palette, now I only seek to apply this selection to a photo.

 

Extracting colours from a photos is possible, just the other way round unfortunately not.

[Aran]

3 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

If you are on Windows, the best "colour indexer" is Color Quantizer. Free and nothing else really compares. Also happens to be the best PNG optimizer with masking tools to control quality on a local level.

http://x128.ho.ua/color-quantizer.html

Unfortunately / Luckily no windows. I had gave up using windows after the x-time when the whole system broke down.

But thanks for the heads up

 

[Winsome]

9 hours ago, Aran said:

I am working with pixel art and a narrow selection of colours.

I've managed to create an indexed colour palette, now I only seek to apply this selection to a photo.

 

Extracting colours from a photos is possible, just the other way round unfortunately not.

Yes, so it is an equivalent to the Color Table from Photoshop you need, where you can save eg 16 colors and reuse them in another indexed color image or use them as the starting point for color reduction.

Exactly, what I do in a for example 16-color image is to save the 16 colors as a color table and when I load an image and reduce to 16 colors (indexed), I load the palette (my color table) and specify that Photoshop should reduce colors from it and apply the 16 colors of course.

[Medical Officer Bones]

15 hours ago, Aran said:

Unfortunately / Luckily no windows. I had gave up using windows after the x-time when the whole system broke down.

But thanks for the heads up

 

Another option is PhotoLine that runs on Mac (M1 native too).

Not as controllable as CQ, but an added benefit is that PhotoLine supports a non-destructive approach if required.

Or Krita's Palettise filter, which again may be applied non-destructively:

Krita offers a really nice option to control the dither pattern as well as dither range. Also works on Mac, of course.

Both reduced to a 27 colour Amstrad colour palette

Actually, most image editors feature a similar colour palette reduction option. I am starting to wonder why Affinity Photo still lacks one. Odd. After all, such a basic tool? Then again, so many other basic things are still missing, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Perhaps in release 2 or 3?

[Aran]

On 8/20/2022 at 5:18 PM, Winsome said:

Yes, so it is an equivalent to the Color Table from Photoshop you need, where you can save eg 16 colors and reuse them in another indexed color image or use them as the starting point for color reduction.

Exactly, what I do in a for example 16-color image is to save the 16 colors as a color table and when I load an image and reduce to 16 colors (indexed), I load the palette (my color table) and specify that Photoshop should reduce colors from it and apply the 16 colors of course.

Yes, but without PS, only with Affinity that seems like a difficult task...

Ta

[Aran]

Photoline

On 8/21/2022 at 12:34 AM, Medical Officer Bones said:

Another option is PhotoLine that runs on Mac (M1 native too).

Not as controllable as CQ, but an added benefit is that PhotoLine supports a non-destructive approach if required.

Or Krita's Palettise filter, which again may be applied non-destructively:

Krita offers a really nice option to control the dither pattern as well as dither range. Also works on Mac, of course.

Both reduced to a 27 colour Amstrad colour palette

Actually, most image editors feature a similar colour palette reduction option. I am starting to wonder why Affinity Photo still lacks one. Odd. After all, such a basic tool? Then again, so many other basic things are still missing, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Perhaps in release 2 or 3?

Hey Medieval Officer Bones,

thank you very much for the recommendations! 

unfortunately Photoline is too expensive for that single feature, as basically I am happy with Affinity, just missing the above described feature at the moment.

I've checked out Krita, and that seems to do the job, TYVM

With beste regards

-Aran

[Winsome]

5 hours ago, Aran said:

Yes, but without PS, only with Affinity that seems like a difficult task...

It was more to clarify the need for Serif (and myself).

Hope you get your wish. 🙂

[Marielle]

I would also need this function, and was wondering if there were any updates regarding indexed colors ? I also am looking for an "automatic degradation of the color range of any image".  And then be able to modify the color of that palette with the colors in the image changing at the same time.  

Thanks !