Make a Color Palette with PicMonkey

Autumn Nest

I have yet another online app to tell you about. Alright, yes I’ve been spending a lot of time online goofing off. Ok? I admit it. Now, If you have spent much time online you have probably heard about PicMonkey.  PicMonkey is a free online photo editing tool that I have just started playing with; I usually use Pixlr to do my online photo editing. However I keep seeing color palettes created using photos popping up all over blog land, so I investigated. Here's one below that I made from the picture above using PicMonkey. And it is very easy when you know the steps and what the tools are for.

 Autumn Nest Color Palette

What could this be useful for? Well my first thought is for painting and decorating your home; interior or exterior. Do you have a photo or painting that you love? Paint and decorate a room to match it. My next thought would be perhaps to use in scrap booking, crafting or sewing, enabling you to easily stay within a color palette that coordinates. Choose a photo, picture or painting you love and then create a color palette to work off of. You could even use fabric or scrap book paper instead of a picture. Photograph or scan them into your computer to use.

• A good rule of thumb is to always make a copy of your photo before you start to work on it in any app. That way if you mess up, you still have the original intact.
• On the PicMonkey page, click Edit a Photo and upload your photo. 

• On the far left side, choose Overlays. I chose Geometric shapes for this picture. I clicked on the oval and an oval appears on my photo. It is movable and sizeable. I decided I wanted a row at the bottom so after I placed it where I wanted it I simply re-clicked the shape to add more of them; then place them where I wanted. If you click too many, select the shape you want removed, right click and choose 'delete overlay'.

• After I had a row of ovals placed as I liked I clicked on my first oval then took my cursor over to the rainbow color bar that appeared. I clicked on the color bar (anywhere will do) and another small bar appears to the far right.
• Click on that and you now have a dropper. Move the dropper over to the photo and the overlay shape will turn the color that the dropper is on. Click to keep the color you like best.
• Click on the next overlay shape and again return to the far right color bar, click for your dropper and return to your photo for you next color choice. If you don’t like what you end up with, it is easily changed out.
• Continue until you are satisfied you have the color palette you want.

Spring Birds Nest 1

Let's say you choose this birds nest picture as your starting point for decorating a room. You want the room to be mostly about pinks so you choose all the pinks in the pictures range. 

Spring Birds Nest 2

Or if you want it to be about neutrals with a touch of pink, then choose those colors from your picture.

If you are like me, more is more with this app, so I often add more overlay shapes to my photo so I can have even more colors! Oh this is so fun and addicting for me! I LOVE color! Maybe I will start making color palettes on a regular bases and post my favorites here.

Will you try it? What would you use a color palette for?

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