#cuz i can change the tone. the hue. if its warm or cold.

[spideysatan]

im so happy with the color of my hair but i still hate the cut :///

[especdreamy]

"Color Palette Calculator"

Context

ALRIGHT so basically I wanted to try out making more "limited" color palettes but I was very tired of having to try find approximate colors to what my original references looked like, so I started wondering if there was an "easier" way (for me at least)

This "calculator" method allows you to get the equivalent of a regular color you have to a more limited palette based on the primary CMYK + white primary colors you choose!

Disclaimer 1: You need a program that can give you CMYK values from a color you pick.

Disclaimer 2: This method MAY be VERY limited and it's not a replacement to like - ACTUALLY knowing color theory, I'm just very lazy and I want to help other people who don't want to burn their brain with palettes like me.

Anyways I'll be using this template I uploaded to drive. But if you want to make your own you just need a white layer, and a folder which will contain 4 layers: one for Cyan, other for Magenta, other for Yellow, and one for "Key" (Black). Make them in that order and make sure the colors are INSIDE the folder and the white OUTSIDE of it and set the CMY layers to "Multiply"

Under a readmore cuz it's gonna get long LOL

the idea is that you change all of the colors on these channels to fit the kind of palette you want - warm, cold, pastel, low saturation, etc.

I have made a more in depth explanation on how this works

To begin with, the color wheel on the file looks kind of like this. It is divided in 4 channels (CMYK) whenever you edit one of the channels it'll change all of the colors that are influenced by it. This first wheel is MOSTLY for previewing purposes, just to make sure that your palette is looking the way you like.

There's some limitations to it though: I advice to AVOID full saturation and too dark tones for the CMY channels, try make sure that the combination of all three of them doesn't make Pure Black

For this example, I want to have a light and warm palette, so I lower the saturation for the Cyan channel and also move it around to a warmer hue, I also adjust the brightness and saturation of the Magenta and Yellow channels.

Here's how all of these colors would look like on top of each other- as you can see its a very dark brown.

THEN. You get your "Key" color - AKA black, and your white. What are the darkest and lightest tones you want your palette to get? For this one I decided to choose a very light yellow and and a very dark purple. You can totally skip this step if you want your palette to be able to reach pure black and white.

THEN. you pass on all your CMYK and White colors onto the other folder (swatches) which looks a bit like this:

Now onto the fun part! take your character that you want to transform to this palette! Here I drew a cranboo with his base colors!

Pick a color! any of them, for this instance I picked the red of his tie,

You may notice that the CMYK sliders give you percentages that go from 0 to 100. Go back to the swatches and match the opacities of your layers with the percentages!

Pick that color, transfer it to your character! Here he is with all his colors changed with that same procedure!

Due to how CMYK channels display and pick colors, you could technically do this with ANY color!

But also due to how CMYK sliders and the multiply effect work you can't even make the original colors even if you kept the CMYK channels the same and I'm not willing to figure out how to "work around" that so I'll just conform to this lol (this is the reason why you have to make sure the combination of all three colors you choose doesn't give you black btw)