Palette from Image...

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

I often used that old plugin "Palette from Image" (I'm pretty sure that was the one). It created a very cool full palette from any image used, then would crash PDN. However, it was able to still save the palette. I honestly didn't care that it crashed the whole program after the creation of each palette file because it was a valuable tool for creating themed digital kits and getting a large variety of colors from a single image that had a nice assortment of unique colors in it. It was beyond handy. Now, to go online, one can usually get a palette created in 4 to 6 colors, basically, but nothing anywhere near what "Palette from Image" would do so quickly.

 

Was there ever a replacement plugin created to take it's place and I still have not found it? I was willing to reinstall an older version of Paint.Net just to use the old plugin to create palettes, even if it did cause the program to crash after each palette. I have noticed the plugin was "patched" (stopped from being used?). Maybe it was for security reasons or it was too hinky and problematic? I don't know, but, there's no more .dll file to use even with an older version of PDN. Just a file with a lot of numbers and no file extension.

 

Maybe something like that is too difficult to combine with the way PDN is written and functions? So, I was just wondering. Thank you to anyone who has any help or input.

 

Also, with this updated version of PDN, I wanted to say THANK YOU!! PDN, for me, on any computer I've used it on, has neveropened up SO RAPIDLY and ready to go until this version, and with many plugins. It's like lightening speed and, OH MY GOSH!! WOW!!

 

If there is not any more "Palette from Image" plugin, would it be too hard to make a new one that works with the 4+ versions of PDN, for anyone who has the time or interest?

 

Thank you. I hope everyone has a safe and peaceful holiday season.

 

 

 

 

[Pixey]

Hi @ScrapbookWithPDN.  Hope you are well also.  I still look at your fabulous website every now and then

 

I think you may be thinking of Curtis Black's  "Selective from Palette"

 

If so, I'm afraid a lot of his Plugins are no longer compatible with paint.net. 

 

Let's see what the Plugin developers have to say about your request  

[AndrewDavid]

Hi @ScrapbookWithPDN

I use this one quite regularly without any crashes.

Hope this helps

 

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

3 hours ago, Pixey said:

Hi @ScrapbookWithPDN.  Hope you are well also.  I still look at your fabulous website every now and then

 

I think you may be thinking of Curtis Black's  "Selective from Palette"

 

If so, I'm afraid a lot of his Plugins are no longer compatible with paint.net. 

 

Let's see what the Plugin developers have to say about your request  

 

Hi, Pixey, that's very gracious and kind of you to mention the website. I still get emails from time to time from people who find PDN much easier to use and that they never imagined using PDN for digital scrapbook layout assembling or kit creation. So many in that world amazingly still have never even heard of PDN and have struggled trying to still figure out the other main two programs;  Gimp and Photoshop. Why torture yourself, I say. I even got much better with Gimp but I just don't use it. PDN does about 96% of most functions, and faster, with less clicking. Plus, to start gimp and wait for it to load means I have time to go do a watercolor painting before it's ready to use. Ok, that's a stretch, but, it feels like it. They are powerful programs and wonderful, but so is Paint.Net.

 

Actually, until just now, I hadn't used "Selective from Palette" and just tried it, then deleted it. Maybe it's because it's not compatible or maybe because I don't get it, after spending 15 minutes using the plugin. I did get colors that looked like it was from my image, when constantly clicking the button, but it gave me many additional ones, as well. I guess I could do that myself with an open note pad and the eye dropper touching different areas of my image, which I'm no stranger too, few times I've wanted to create my own custom palette from a nice image that had many complimentary colors themed nicely together. I don't really do it that often these days but I do get emails from those who are happy to be crossing over to PDN the more they learn about it and what it can do. They love how it is surprisingly powerful and far less complicated.  I do know my website has been educational and that people have taken the time to tell me thank you for creating it because they had no idea, which I'm not surprised, and why I created the website.  I couldn't find any mention of it for the digital scrapbooking community a number of years ago when I looked and looked. I'm also not that into it like I was but it's still alive and well in many circles. I get humbled just knowing people visit that website, period, and when they take the time to drop an email to say "thank you", that is even more humbling.

 

Thank you, again, for the information and assistance. It was appreciated.

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

2 hours ago, AndrewDavid said:

Hi @ScrapbookWithPDN

I use this one quite regularly without any crashes.

Hope this helps

 

Hi, AndrewDavid. Thank you so much for that info. There are so many plugins, which is amazing, that I can't keep up with all of them. I didn't realize the one you suggested created palettes. It's not as simple as the one I was initially referencing, but it does create palettes. I really appreciate that. I'm still playing with it.

 

Thank you both for your help. Very kind of you....and thanks to Techno and the other developers for always making so many things that keep making PDN the incredible software that it is. It's helped so many worldwide who wouldn't be able to obtain an image creating or editing software. Regardless of anything else, that's incredibly selfless.

 

I'm not sure what blows my mind more; the powerful software that's free or for a small fee in the store, the people always at the forum, day and night 7/24 to help, or the blood, sweat, tears, and selflessness with giving of time many developers and code writers have contributed to PDN to make it what it is....or the vision Rick had many years ago and stayed with it. It's kind of like having a kid and watching it grow up through the years.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

4 hours ago, ScrapbookWithPDN said:

There are so many plugins, which is amazing, that I can't keep up with all of them

 

Me neither - and I maintain the Plugin Index! Now that @SodiumEnglish has made the Plugin Index into such a remarkable tool, try using it with a keyword like "palette" to get a shortlist of plugins.

 

4 hours ago, ScrapbookWithPDN said:

I'm not sure what blows my mind more; the powerful software that's free or for a small fee in the store, the people always at the forum, day and night 7/24 to help, or the blood, sweat, tears, and selflessness with giving of time many developers and code writers have contributed to PDN to make it what it is....or the vision Rick had many years ago and stayed with it. It's kind of like having a kid and watching it grow up through the years.

 

Amen! 👍

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

For others who would like a specific "Image to Palette" type of function. I did find one online that generates 10 maximum colors, https://palettegenerator.com/ but that's better than only 4 and 5 colors most online generators produce, and it's an exact match to colors you want to use. Once you get the colors from an image, it's a little time consuming, but you can then pull up a text colour palette file in the Paint.Net palette folder, delete the already given long list of hex colors, which will usually start with FF on the far left side, keep the FFs located to the far left side, don't delete them or your colors will be transparent, but copy and paste the new colors from the newly generated colours in place of the already given hex code. Delete any "#" symbols. Once you get the first 10, you can go to that color generator and move the image around to get close, yet different colors, within the entire image. Look for additional/different hex colours as you create them from the same image after each 10 colors have been generated. They will be in harmony with the distinct tones and blends you are wanting from your image since you are using the same image but just moving it around to get 10 additional colours each time. After 20 or 30, you'll have had enough of fiddling with it but you'll have a good assortment of colors from the source you liked the colors from. I'm referring to photos that have 4 to 6 color palettes showing next to the image it was taken from.  The actual image will have additional colors, beyond the 4, 5, or 6 given, which will blend nicely with each other and stay within the range you want.

 

The other option is to use TRs Color Reducer and keep sliding around the sliders to get the exact or close to the exact colors from the source image. At least it's much easier to save it to a color palette file using his plugin. Cool plugin for what it was made for. You get very close to the colors you were hoping when you keep moving around and tinkering with both of the sliders. You'll have to keep playing with both of the sliders until you get 96 colors, or less, to save the colors to a color palette. From there just keep playing with it slightly more to get as close to the color palette you were hoping for to save, because it gives various shades and tones of the colors, will reduce or remove some of the colors, or even produce thousands of colors, BUT, to save a palette you have to continue to move around BOTH of the sliders until the box below the colors read 96 or less. I didn't see a "reset" function to clear thousands of colors that appear by playing with the sliders, so to start again just close the plugin and re-open it. Once you spend some time playing around with it, you'll get a better feel of how to generate the palettes you decide to save.  You'll save so much more time using this one and get close enough to what you wanted.

Edited December 1, 2018 by ScrapbookWithPDN

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

Oh, that's so funny! To re-read it, looking for grammar errors, I'm using both spellings of color/colour. Usually, I stick with one of them. Wow! Too much flying! LOL!

[Pixey]

I'm from the UK and have learned to use color now 🤣 - but it always seems odd

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

OH, WOW!! Now that I read how to deal with a download effects plugin that is nothing but a series of numbers and no file extension, I applied it to the seemingly dead/incompatible plugin "Palette from Image". I just named the download "Palette from Image" and added a .zip to it when saving the download. It says it isn't compatible with various 4. versions of PDN, but I just used it. It works GREAT!!! It didn't crash my PDN window or anything. I was afraid to touch it while it did its thing so I didn't change where the completed color palette goes.  To use it each time, however, you have to close PDN and reopen it for each color palette created. Heck, with how fast Paint.Net opens now, it's not even a big deal.  So, it allows you to name your color palette. It just sends the new text file to "Documents". You can't change that. At least I tried and couldn't. I simply placed the new text file color palette where it goes in the PDN palette folder and it works great.

 

Just like old times!!!

 

It takes SECONDS to create a full 96 beautiful color palette from a particular image now.  You just can't use it more than once without closing and opening Paint.Net each time. I'm grateful!

Edited December 2, 2018 by ScrapbookWithPDN
Added info

[toe_head2001]

49 minutes ago, ScrapbookWithPDN said:

It says it isn't compatible with various 4. versions of PDN, but I just used it. It works GREAT!!! It didn't crash my PDN window or anything.

 

Yeah, it isn't completely broken, but does have a few known issues, and will crash in certain conditions.

If your workflow is unaffected by those issues and crashes, then that is indeed great.

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

Hi, Toe. I hope you're doing well.

 

Ya, hey, I'm not high maintenance with most things. I was super blown away by how incredibly FAST Paint.Net opens and is ready to go, so, to have to close it and reopen it for said purpose is not even a big deal. It's probably the same split seconds to have to go from one image to the next within PDN, anyway.

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

and I would like to take the time to thank jxp for making that plugin. I know it was made a number of years ago, but it's the point....There's a group of people who would find it very useful.

Edited December 7, 2018 by ScrapbookWithPDN
name correction

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

I've used Palette to Image now several times. At least 20. It's never crashed my PDN, yet. I do want to be clear that I only open PDN up to use it for Palette to Image, when using that plugin. I don't keep doing anything else afterwards. I'll make one palette after the other, opening and closing Paint.Net each time, but the software opens up really fast for me. Even if it didn't open as fast as it does now, I'd still use it, because to wait about 5 seconds longer each time, wouldn't be horrible.

 

Maybe this is kind of sad to share, but I've linked to that plugin from my tutorial website, for explaining about custom palette creation, the turbo fast way to create one.  Once I finish that segment, I'll have also explained the possible issues, so people have the full monty of it. I'll also explain to people not to be afraid of what they see when they try to save the file, and to rename it and add the .zip at the end....unless some kind soul, with the capability, who feels like it, would be willing to rename the file properly, if it's allowed, since the thread is closed and left in a dark and lonely corner of PDN world....I would add "collecting dust", but I dusted it off.

[toe_head2001]

16 hours ago, ScrapbookWithPDN said:

...unless some kind soul, with the capability, who feels like it, would be willing to rename the file properly

 

I've corrected the issue with the attachment's filename. It should properly open for everyone now.

[ScrapbookWithPDN]

Thank you SO MUCH, Toe Head. I really appreciate it. I know you're busy....Maybe you should change your name to "The BIG Toe".

[Leigh56]

On 11/30/2018 at 1:45 PM, AndrewDavid said:

Hi @ScrapbookWithPDN

I use this one quite regularly without any crashes.

Hope this helps

 

Is this still compatible with the current version of paint.net?

[HyReZ]

Greetings,

Maybe you could install the TRsColorReducer.dll and then go to the Paint.NET Settings and see if there is a Plugin Error for that .dll.