Once you’ve created a color palette, you can save it to Adobe CC Libraries to access it within other Adobe programs.
1. How to Prepare Your Colors
We are going to create a mood board for our color scheme. First, you need to find a selection of images. Using a site like Unsplash or another stock photography site, collect multiple images that use colors you like.
Think of the mood the colors suggest and let that influence your selection. For example, if you want a whimsical feeling for your design, choose photos with pastel colors and light pinks. Save your downloaded photos in a dedicated folder for easy access.
Open InDesign and open a new document. It can be any size. Select the Rectangle Frame Tool (F) and draw a small, square frame in the top-left corner of your artboard. Hold down Shift while drawing the frame to keep it square.
Duplicate your frame by holding Alt while clicking and dragging the frame. Line up your new frame with a small gap next to the original. Duplicate the frames until you have one frame per image you’ve downloaded.
To add the images to the frames, select a frame and press Alt + D (Mac) or Option + D (Windows) to open the Place dialog box. In the dialog box, navigate to your downloaded images and select one, then select Open. The image will be placed in the frame, but it will be full-sized and cropped by the frame.
To resize the image to fit the frame, right-click and choose Fitting > Fit Frame Proportionally. To move the image around the frame, double-click until a dark orange frame appears where your image’s border is, then drag.
Fill the rest of your frames with your collection of color images.
If you only found one image that you want to use for color inspiration, you can still make a color palette from one rather than a full collection. Just make a large frame and Place the image into the frame in the same way.
2. How to Make a Color Palette in InDesign
Click and drag your cursor over all the images to select them as a group; if you just have one image, then click it to select it. Once your image or images are selected, right-click somewhere in the selected area and choose Extract from Image > Color Themes.
This will open a window where you can create the color palette. The window shows your image selection, five color swatches along the top, and five matching eyedropper circles where those colors were sourced from. This is the automated default Adobe supplies based on the image’s colors. The color swatches also feature down the side along with each color’s HEX code.
Using the color swatch HEX codes, you can pull the colors into other programs like Photoshop or Illustrator. See the differences between InDesign and Illustrator and which you should use for your designs.
You can change the selected swatches in two ways. Firstly, you can click and drag any of the eyedropper circles to another part of the image. This might be handy if you’re happy with three or four of the colors but want to change one or two slightly. The color swatches will update as you move the eyedroppers.
The second way to change the automated color palette results is by clicking on the Color Mood dropdown menu. Under the dropdown menu are six options: Colorful (default), Bright, Muted, Deep, Dark, and None.
Changing the Color Mood will default to hues and shades that are attributed to that style from your photo. By changing this mode, you can use the same photo or mood board and create vastly different color palettes. You can then still move individual color selections within the new Color Mood choices.
3. How to Save and Use Your Color Palette
Once you’ve created your color palette, you probably want to save it to use for future designs. At the bottom of the Extract from Image window is a button to save your color palette. If you’re happy with the colors, select Save to CC Libraries.
A small popup will say Saved, but you’ll have to manually close the Extract from Image dialog box. You can only access your saved color palette when logged into your Adobe account and connected to the internet. To save your custom color palette locally, you would have to do it manually with the HEX codes, which is a little more time-consuming.
While this tutorial uses InDesign, you can create color palettes in similar ways using Photoshop as well as another automated color palette technique in Illustrator.
To open the Libraries go to Window > CC Libraries. This process will be similar or the same within other Adobe programs. The CC Libraries may store vectors, colors, or other things you’ve custom-designed and saved. You’ll see your newly saved color palette within the Libraries window.
To add a color from your Library palette to InDesign’s color swatches, right-click the vertical color stripe of the color you want, and choose Add color to swatches. This will only add the individual color to your swatches, but you can add the entire color palette to your swatches by choosing Add theme to swatches.
Open Swatches in Window > Swatches, then select your chosen color. The Foreground color swatch in the toolbar will change to the selected color. Use the color as you would for any design element—draw with it, fill with it, or add it to a gradient. Double-click another color in the Libraries to change it.
Since this palette is saved across the Adobe CC system, you can access it for all your design needs, including Adobe apps on the iPad or tablet. If you use an iPad for design work, you can also create a color palette from images in Procreate.
Customize Your InDesign Color Schemes
Creating native color palettes is easy in Adobe InDesign. You can edit and adapt the palette to fit your color guidelines more appropriately. Or you can change the entire mood of your design with different colors. InDesign’s color extraction feature allows you to create and use your custom color palette across the entire Adobe software package.
Coloring has never been so easy.
