Palette tools — generator + health check
Two utilities bundled in a single dialog. The generator synthesises a palette from a seed colour using a colour-theory rule. The health check scans your current palette for issues (near-duplicates, missing dark anchors, unused slots) and offers one-click fixes.
Where to find it
Right panel → Palette tab → ⋯ (more menu) → "Palette tools" entry.
Generator
Strategies
| Strategy | What it does | Number of colours |
|---|---|---|
| Monochromatic | 5 lightness steps of the seed hue | 5 |
| Complementary | Seed + opposite hue, 3 lightness steps each | 6 |
| Analogous | Seed ±30° neighbours, 2 lightness steps each | 6 |
| Triadic | 3 hues 120° apart, 2 lightness steps each | 6 |
| Tetradic | 4 hues 90° apart, 2 lightness steps each | 8 |
| Split-complementary | Seed + opposite ±30°, plus dark / light anchors | 8 |
Workflow
- Open Palette tools → Generator tab.
- Pick a seed colour — the colour picker swatch, or click "primary" to use your current primary.
- Select a strategy. The preview swatches update live.
- Choose Replace palette (clear current and use generated) or Append (keep current, add generated colours that aren't already there, deduped).
- Click Apply.
Tips
- Monochromatic is great for character pieces where you want disciplined value relationships.
- Triadic and Tetradic are punchy — start with those for game-ready scenes that need pop.
- Split-complementary automatically includes dark + light anchors, ideal as a starting palette for shading.
- Run the Health check after applying a generated palette — sometimes the auto-generated darks aren't quite dark enough.
Health check
What it analyses
When you switch to the Health check tab, the dialog runs an analysis pass and lists issues. Each issue has a severity colour (info / warn / error) and the relevant palette swatches.
| Issue | What | Fix offered |
|---|---|---|
| Near-duplicate | Two slots within ~5% per channel — easy to confuse, often unintentional. | "Drop slot N" button removes the second of the pair. |
| No darkest | Every colour has luminance > 0.12. Shadows look flat / muddy. | "Add deep dark" prepends a near-black anchor. |
| No highlight | Every colour has luminance < 0.85. Specular highlights look dull. | "Add highlight" appends a near-white anchor. |
| Low mid-tone contrast | More than 60% of colours cluster around L ≈ 0.5. Lacks contrast range. | (Suggestion only, no auto-fix — add darker / lighter colours manually.) |
| Unused | Slot has no painted pixels in any frame. | (Use Palette ops → Remove unused for batch removal.) |
When everything's healthy
A green "Your palette looks healthy" message replaces the issue list. Run the check periodically as your project grows — palettes drift.
Combined workflow: bootstrap a project palette
- Pick a primary colour that captures your project's mood.
- Open Palette tools → Generator → Split-complementary → Apply (Replace).
- Switch to Health check → confirm the auto-generated dark / light anchors are present.
- Drop into indexed mode to lock yourself to the new palette.
- Start painting. Run the health check again at milestones.
Quick palette swap (alternative to the generator)
For a faster path that skips the dialog entirely:
]— cycle to the next built-in preset (DB16 → PICO-8 → Sweetie 16 → Endesga 32 → Resurrect 64 → CGA 16 → Greyscale 16 → Empty → DB16 …)[— cycle backward
If you have a custom palette (no match against any preset), ] jumps to the first preset.
Related
- Palette — basics, sorting, removing unused
- Indexed mode — lock pixels to the palette so palette swaps propagate
- Color cycles — animate palette slots over time
- Eyedropper — sample colours from canvas / reference