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PDN for Digital Scrapbooking
PDN is short for Paint Dot Net, a FREE photo editing & image creating software.
Custom Color Palettes
With Paint.Net, you can not only create, but save and reuse your own custom color palette of up to 96 colors. That means you're not stuck with only 4 or 6 colors commonly offered as a digital project color palette. You can have a beautiful blend of many coordinated colors. You likely won't need all 96 colors to create a themed color coordinated digital scrap kit, printing, art, designing, or whatever project, but it's nice to know you can blend many colors that flow nicely together in your own custom color palette to keep and use when wanted or needed.
I've taken the time to create several color palettes for you. I'd like to pretend it took me a long time, but in Paint.Net it can be done as fast as blinking. It takes a couple of seconds to create a custom palette the way I do it. I will be adding them to this page at the bottom when I have more time or just start making your own using the “Palette From Image” plug-in. Below explains how to do that. It’s very easy.
Two easy things you’re going to need to do and I’m going to explain each of them.
1.) Find your own color palette images (I’ve given some links below to get you started)
and
2.) Install the "Palette From Image" plug-in (I've given the link and instructions to install it are directly below)
How to install Paint.Net plug-ins
NEVER INSTALL Paint.Net plug-ins from anywhere other than the official Paint.Net forum located HERE. There are other places that offer them but you run the risk of getting virus infected problems. I've seen videos on Youtube where people try to get you to download unofficial versions of Paint.Net or Plug-ins for Paint.Net from websites that are NOT the official forum. Do NOT do that.
I go to a place like Color Palette Ideas, or even various Pinterest pages. Just do an internet search for "color palettes on Pinterest". Many links to endless Pinterest pages will come up. You might even find a nice photo on the internet that has a flow of colors you like. That will work, too. For the sake of this tutorial, we will use a color palette found at the website "Color Palette Ideas". Stay organized and create a yellow folder called "Color Palette Images". Surf the net and find a few images of color palettes, or a photo that you like all of the colors, right click on the image and select "Save as" and save the ones you want to your newly created "Color Palette Image" yellow folder. As you will see, if you are using a specifically designated "Color Palette" image found at one of the above given links, it's not only a few colors but a nice photo that goes with each color palette. That photo has additional complimentary colors on it that that will be added to your collection of colors for that particular palette you are creating when using the Paint.Net plug-in called "Palette From Image". (The page says it's not compatible with newer versions of Paint.Net, but, it is. You just have to close Paint.Net after you create each color palette. I'll explain how easy and fast it is to create them below, to include downloading the plug-in.)
I would also like to add Sarah Renea Cook's website. She has a remarkable website with beautiful Christmas color palettes. Sarah creates coloring books for everyone of any age. Sarah is an talented artist, mom, self published author, and much more. Here is her biography. I don't know Sarah but I found her website while looking for color palettes and liked what she was all about, so I included her color palettes and info.
You'll get lost and submerged in color palettes the more you look. People are always on the hunt for just that right color palette to use in the next project.
Before I get ahead of myself, at this point, I'd like to link to a page from those who create and run the Paint.Net forum. It's about managing your color palettes. If it seems really crazy and confusing, not to worry, it will start making more sense when you actually install Paint.Net and begin fiddling and tinkering around with it. The more you dive in and play around, the more you’ll start getting the hang of things.
Note: You most likely will not even need to know this part, but, just in case, I'm going to mention that one day in making custom palettes you *might* require something that can write to a text file, “.txt” The last part of the file ends in a dot with the letters “txt”. Paint.Net runs mostly on Windows, and all Windows operating systems that I have known of always have “Notepad”. In Win 10 they do not want you to find Notepad easily. Who knows why? Not to worry, just right click your mouse on your Windows start menu button, located on the lower left corner of your computer monitor. A menu will come up. Select “Run”. Once the box pops up, just type in the word “Notepad” then click on "OK". A white screen opens up because you are now using Notepad. You can go play around and type anything you want on it. Give it a name before saving it but you need to make sure you click "Save As" and save it to your desktop so you will be able to find the file you just created on Notepad. Once you do, go to your desktop to locate the file. When you find it double click on it and it opens up to read what you wrote. That’s how you find "Notepad" on your computer, should you need it. Now, enough about Notepad.
These are samples of some of my custom created color palettes. If you right click on them, as if you're going to save them to your computer, you'll see the names I gave them.
CREATING YOUR CUSTOM PALETTES:
Open Paint.Net. Once it’s opened, from within Paint.Net go to the top left corner of the software. Click on “File”. You’ll have to navigate to your desktop, or wherever your yellow folder is that you saved all of your images or color palette photos to. Once you find it, click on that folder to go into it and select an image from it to open up into Paint.Net…..or….while Paint.Net is open, open up another folder to see images. Find one you want and drag that image onto the canvas in Paint.Net.
Now, let’s pretend you have selected the color palette, or image, you want to make a color palette from and it’s showing up on the canvas within Paint.Net. Go to the top left menu area of Paint.Net. Click on “Effects”, go down near the bottom and click on “Tools”. Once that menu pops up select “Palette From Image”. A small box pops up. The top of it says “Save Palette”. There is an area where you can type in the name of your created color palette. Once you type in a name click on the “Save” button. The pop up box then goes away. You need to go to your yellow folder directory called “Documents”. At this time you cannot change where your created and saved color palette .txt file goes. From there you will see a file with the name you gave your color palette. Put that .txt file where it goes in the yellow “Paint.Net User Files” also in the same location. Once in there find the yellow folder named “Palettes”. If a yellow folder named “Palettes” is not already in there just create a yellow folder and name it “Palettes”.
To see and use your newly created color palette you will need to close down then re-open Paint.Net. Go to your color wheel in Paint.Net (image of the color wheel is shown below). Click on the word “More”. The color wheel opens up into a larger area. On the lower left side you will see a tiny yellow folder with a tiny black dot or tiny black down-pointing arrow image. Click on that. You will see the name of your newly created color palette. Click on that color palette name. Your new color palette is displayed within the color wheel. If you cannot see all of the colors in your newly created color palette, go to the top right of the color wheel and click on the “More” button. The color wheel opens up.
To put the color wheel back the way it was before you created your custom color palette click on the small yellow folder icon at the bottom left side of the color wheel. When the menu appears select “Reset to Default Palette."
The image below is of a smaller version so it downloads fast. Click on the Paint.Net Color Palette Info PDF document HERE to better view it and save it so you won't need to be on the internet to find and read it.
There is a cool plug-in that compliments your "Palette From Image" plug-in. You don't have to have it but after awhile you realize it comes in handy and is nice to have. It's called "List of Palettes" and you might as well install it while you're doing all of this because you'll want it if you work with a lot of your custom palettes. This plug-in will show you all of your custom color palettes to view, all at one time. The larger you make your canvas the more you can fit on it to view at one time.
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