You can create truly unique color palettes in Procreate using your own pictures or even snapping a scene on the go. Here's how.

Having a great color palette is vital for an artist. There are a few different ways to find inspiration for color palettes, but Procreate allows you to create an automatic color palette at the click of a button.

You can create palettes from uploaded images, files, or even by taking a photo of your current inspiration with the iPad’s camera. All three techniques are easy and often overlooked, so keep reading to find a whole new way to introduce colors into your work.

Whether you’re drawing from a photo reference or have found the perfect color palette in a photo, it isn’t always easy to replicate those colors manually in Procreate.

Procreate can save you time in making a color palette. You can have a color palette automatically derived from the exact colors of the photo you’re inspired by.

You can create a color palette at any stage in Procreate. So it’s up to you if you set your color palette before you even start illustrating or after you’ve done the outline and are ready to color it in.

Whichever option works best for you, you’ll still need to be on an open Procreate canvas in order to add the color palette. From Procreate’s Gallery, either choose an existing Procreate file or tap + to open a new canvas, set to your preferences.

To open the color palette from your canvas, tap the color circle in the top right corner. Colors opens with the Disk view by default, showing a circular color spectrum where you can choose any color in the rainbow. This also shows your history of recently used colors, as well as any recently saved palettes or swatches.

At the bottom of the Colors tab, you’ll see different palette options: Disk, Classic, Harmony, Value, and Palettes. The first four are different ways you can create or choose your colors. The Palettes option allows you to save, upload, or create a palette in various ways, including from a photo. This is also where you’ll find any previously saved color palettes. You can name them or leave them in untitled groups.

It's a great idea to save previously used palettes, especially if you're going to try to recreate old projects. We used a standard four-color palette to create realistic-looking soap bubbles in Procreate. But if you decide to animate a Procreate project you drew a while ago, for example, saved color palettes may come in handy if you need to recolor anything.

There are two different ways you can view a saved palette. Viewing in Compact shows you palettes of 30 small color swatches. Compact view only shows the colors themselves. Card view allows you to see larger swatches of color in rows of three. The cards also feature a color name, such as Dark Gray, or a hex code if you’re running iPadOS 14 or below.

Card view may help you distinguish between color types, and you can rename the colors by tapping on the card.

From the Palettes panel, tap +. This gives you four options to create a color palette: Create new palette; New from camera; New from file; New from photos. Tap New from photos.

You need to have your intended photo saved to your iPad photos before you start this process. A dialog box appears showing your iPad photos, so find the photo you want to base your new color palette on.

A photo with distinct color differences will be a good choice or any photo that follows a clear color trend. We're using a photo of a poppy field from Unsplash if you want to use it too.

Once you’ve chosen your photo, ensure your Palettes window is set to Compact, and you’ll see your new full palette appear at the top. This will initially be titled Palette from image. You can rename the palette by tapping the title.

Your new palette will populate all 30 swatches with colors present in the photo you used. It’s up to you which colors you decide to use in your Procreate project. We have a full guide on how to use the color picker and fill tool in Procreate.

Another great way to make a color palette on the go is by using your iPad’s camera. If you’re out and about and have found a beautiful view with the perfect natural color palette, you can take a photo and make a Procreate palette there and then.

This technique follows the same initial steps as the previous technique: tap Colors > Palettes > +, then in the options, tap New from camera. This brings up your camera, but with a pixelated grid in the center. Point your lens towards the colors you want to capture for your new palette; the grid populates to show which colors will be in the color palette.

Below the shutter button, switching between Visual and Indexed populates your palette differently. Visual creates a palette based on the colors seen directly in the grid area of your screen or lens. This is better if you are taking a photo of a specific area, such as a flower head.

Tapping Indexed creates a palette grid populated from the entire area of the image. This choice may be better if you’re inspired by the colors of a full view, such as a sunset landscape.

Once the grid area has the colors you’re happy with, tap the shutter. Instead of your iPad saving a photo, your screen will jump back to Procreate. You’ll have a brand new color palette of the grid from the camera. You can rename the color palette by tapping the title of it.

You can populate a Procreate color palette the same way from a file as from a photo. To do this, tap Colors > Palettes > + > New from file. Navigate to your image file and choose a suitable file to create a color palette from. This method only supports certain file formats, such as JPG and PNG, and cannot be used with PDFs.

Once you've mastered different ways to create color palettes in Procreate, you can begin mastering the Brush tools too. We have some tips and tricks to start using the Brush Library in Procreate.

With these three great techniques, you can quickly and easily make new color palettes in Procreate. You can be inspired by colors from photos, files, or real life, and use them exactly as they appear to color your projects. The palettes save for as long as you want them, so you can continue using real-life inspiration when making digital art.

Ruby is a writer in MUO’s Creative category, focusing on writing about design software. Having worked as a designer, illustrator, and photographer, Ruby also has a BA in Graphic Communication and an MA in English with Creative Writing.

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