Building a Color Palette for Interior Design

NOTE: You can use PhotoShop or free, open-source Gimp as your image editor. This tutorial will not teach you how to use your image editing program.

Step 1Take pictures of your products, find images of them online, or scan in paint samples. Crop the pictures carefully to remove backgrounds and extraneous objects. Copy the images into a single document. It is best to use a program that supports layers and put one object on each layer. To eliminate background white overlaps, set the layer property to “darken” and arrange layers from lightest to darkest (darkest on top).

Step 2Arrange the items by size to approximate the predominance of the color in the room. Consider things like how large the item is, or how much you like that color and want to emphasize it in things like accessories and paint colors. When overlapping colors change one another, move the objects so they don’t overlap.

Step 3Save the document with its layers. This will allow you to add, subtract, or change the predominance of colors as your design evolves.

Step 4Merge all of the layers. Save again, but to a different file name. You do not want to overwrite your file with layers or you won’t be able to edit it later.

Step 5Select the white color background and any other objects, artifacts, or noise that you don’t want influencing your palette, and make these transparent, otherwise they will influence your palette, for example, adding white when you don’t want any white in your room.

©2009, KT Hernandez kthernandez@earthlink.net

Building a Color Palette for Interior Design

Step 6Now “average” your colors to get the palette. There are several ways to do this:

Use the “Stained Glass” tool.Make the “cell” size large to reduce the number of colors. Pick your favorites.

Use the “Cutout” tool.Use the adjustments to isolate the shades that interest you most.

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©2009, KT Hernandez kthernandez@earthlink.net

Use a Web service.

http://www.colr.org

In this case, I uploaded a .png version of the image. Try to use .png format if possible because that format retains the transparency information. The web application automatically selects the predominant colors, gives you information about each color, and allows you to assemble your favorite colors to see how well they go together.

An example palette extracted from the image is shown below.

Any of these views allow you to see how well your objects will go together, and can help you choose – or eliminate – paint colors, flooring colors, or new furnishings.

Have fun playing with these techniques, and happy decorating!

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