modify palette file

This menu is for editing palettes. When you enter the menu, the system displays three images. The first image is a master palette that contains a wide variety of colors you can select just by clicking on them. The second image is the user palette, which shows the current state of your palette. This palette has room for 256 colors. The third image is the current color image, which shows the color that is currently selected.

Once these images have been displayed, you can add the current color to the user palette by clicking on it with button 1. This is called adding a color spot. You can change the current color and add color spots wherever you like.

You can change the current color by clicking on a new color in the master palette, or by using the Hue, Saturation, or Intensity sliders. To use the sliders, click on one, and change the value by moving the pointer back and forth. The current color image will be continually updated. When you have it the way you want it, click again. This fixes the color and makes the slider stop changing.

To fill in the user palette colors that lie in between color spots, you can click on SMOOTH THE PALETTE. This interpolates colors between spots. You can control the degree of smoothing by entering a number from 0 (no smoothing) to 6 (complete smoothing) in the Blending factor menu field. You can also control whether the interpolation is done in RGB-space or in HSI-space by setting the Smooth in HSI space? toggle. You can smooth the palette as many times as you want.

After you have smoothed the palette, you may wish to add color spots where their colors match what is already in the user palette. You can do this by clicking on the user palette with button 2. This creates a new color spot, but instead of using the current color, the system uses the color that was already at that spot on the palette. (The idea is that you can now MOVE the spot, and resmooth, thus warping the palette without changing the color scheme.)

If you want to remove a color spot, click on REMOVE A COLOR SPOT and then click near the spot you want to remove.

You can freely add and remove spots, and smooth the palette any number of times. You can also clear all the color spots by clicking on REMOVE ALL COLOR SPOTS.

You can reposition a color spot by clicking on MOVE A COLOR SPOT. The system will ask you to indicate which spot you want to move. Click near a spot with button 1. Now indicate the new position for that spot by clicking with button 1 on some other location in the user palette. The spot will keep the same color, but will be moved to the new location. You can stop moving spots by clicking button 2, or by clicking somewhere in the menu.

You can see the effect of the current palette on greyscale images by entering an image name in the Greyscale image field, and clicking on DISPLAY IMAGE. You can actually use this image to indicate colors when you're moving fixed colors around. This can be helpful if you want to design a palette that produces a desired appearance in an image.