[PHOTO] - Is it possible to draw / edit / create using a specific, limited colour pallet? But still have access to layers and effects?

[itisme]

I've picked up some freelance work on a game that uses a limited 256 colour pallet. So any colours not in the pallet can not be used. I have played around with some conversion apps that convert true colour images to the pallet, but there are often undesirable results.

I want to try creating the images directly in the pallet, so only the "exact and correct" colours can be used during the creation process.

In photoshop, as far as I know, you can do this by editing a "indexed colour image" with the correct pallet set, but in this image mode you can not use layers nor can you use any of the effects and most of the filters.

I was wondering if Affinity would be an option for me to use... I am hoping there is a way to set a strict colour pallet to an image, then edit it, use layers and effects and filters, but still always keep the indexed colours limited to a provided pallet.

Is this possible and if not, what methods that are in the wheel-house of what I am trying to do, would you recommend?

[NotMyFault]

It’s not possible in the way you are asking for.

1. you cannot restrict the colors used in a document to a palette while editing
2. there is no  „indexed color mode“ while editing
3. Affinity offers palettized export, but this falls behind your expectations
   1. The option to specify a own palette never worked
   2. using existing palettes creates a dithered result

What is possible is to use a palette of colors, but it won’t protect against accidentally using other colors or creating gradients.

[thomaso]

A (theoretical / cumbersome) workaround could be creating + using a colour profile which forces all colours to a desired range.

As used for the limited "Riso" printer's ink palette for instance: https://colorshift.theretherenow.com/profiles

[NotMyFault]

23 minutes ago, thomaso said:

A (theoretical / cumbersome) workaround could be creating + using a colour profile which forces all colours to a desired range.

As used for the limited "Riso" printer's ink palette for instance: https://colorshift.theretherenow.com/profiles

Using grey/8 is a method to limit the number of colors to 256 - I don’t know if this can be combined with a color profile to show different (non grey) colors during edit. It can be achieved by a 2 step approach, embedding the grey/8 image into a RGB/8 document and using gradient map adjustment or procedural texture filter to remap the grey values to colors.