One of the things I’ve had a hard time with when starting a design (new site, poster, etc) is figuring out the colors. Trying to find a combination of colors that triggers inspiration. Well, I worked out a rather simple means of creating a color palette using Photoshop.
Image version (with PDF for purchase) available on my DeviantArt page.
- We start with a new Photoshop document by press Ctrl+N (or Mac equivalent) and changing the document width to 100 pixels and the height to 20 pixels.
- Select the Gradient Tool (G), then click on the Gradient Editor to select or create a new gradient.
- Click and drag the Gradient Tool the entire length of the document. You should have something similar to the following image:
- Select Mosaic from the Filter menu: then set Cell Size to 10 pixels and click OK.
And that’s it! You’re finished. You should have an image that looks like this (expanded to 800×80):
You can use the Eyedropper Tool to select your colors or you can repeat the steps, except make your document longer and thinner to create a horizontal bar.