The CMYK model is based on the fact that ink on paper both absorbs and reflects light. As white light strikes the ink, part of the color spectrum is absorbed and part is reflected back to your eyes (resulting in the color you see).

In this model, the primary colors cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) combine in varying proportions to produce a variety of colors. When the three colors are combined, they produce black. Because impurities in the ink make it difficult to produce a true black, a fourth color, black (K), is added.

Combining inks in this way is called four-color process printing. It is used by printing services and high-end color printers.

Although you cannot create images in Paint Shop Pro using the CMYK model, you can produce color separations that can be printed on CMYK printers. There are two ways to do this: You can split the images into CMYK channels or you can print color separation pages.

CMYK channels are simply four separate greyscale images that represent the percentage and location of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black in the image.

When you print CMYK separations, Paint Shop Pro prints a separate greyscale page for each primary color. You can then use these pages as “color plates” to give to a printing service.

Computer monitor colors and printed colors may often be quite different—which is a challenge when you are trying to match a certain color. Colors can also appear different from monitor to monitor.

Image colors on a monitor are influenced by a variety of factors: the color range, called the color gamut, of the input device (such as the scanner or camera), the manufacturer and age of the monitor, and the monitor’s brightness and contrast settings.

When you print an image, you introduce other factors that influence color: the quality and absorption properties of the paper, the color gamut of the printer, and the conversion of RGB values from the monitor to the CMYK values of the printer’s ink.

This conversion is a challenge because of the different approaches to color between monitors and printers. Because monitors use light to display color, they use additive colors—when you add them together, they produce white. Conversely, when you remove all monitor colors you produce black. Because printers use ink to display color, they use subtractive colors—when you remove colors, you produce white, and when you add all printer colors you produce black. As a result, monitors and printers have different color gamuts. Although they share many of the same colors, there are some colors a monitor can display that a printer can’t print and some colors a printer can print that a monitor can’t display.

Given all the factors that go into producing colors, how do you go about making colors accurate and consistent? Try these options:

Calibrate your monitor every few months.

Get to know the typical differences between your monitor’s colors and your printer’s colors so that you can adjust your images as needed. Print out several photographs or other images and compare them to the screen. Are there typical results? For example, your printer may always print colors darker than your monitor displays them. Knowing this, you can modify the lightness of your images accordingly.

Consider using Windows Color Management, which helps to improve color consistency across devices.

Image files store their color information in channels, or planes, of colors. You can separate (or “split”) an image into RGB, HSL, or CMYK color channels. An RGB image has three channels: red, green, and blue. An HSL image has three channels: hue, saturation, and lightness. Although you cannot create or edit an image using the CMYK model, you can still split the image to four channels: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

The Split Channel command creates a new greyscale image for each color channel; the original image is not affected. For example, an HSL image is split into separate greyscale images named “Hue,” “Saturation,” and “Lightness.” Each greyscale image represents the percentage and location of a color (such as red) or a characteristic (such as lightness) within the image.

You can edit the greyscale images and use them to create interesting effects or masks. You can combine them again using the Combine Channel command. If you split an image into CMYK channels, you can then send the four greyscale images to a printing service. You can also print CMYK separations directly.

To split color channels:

Open the image.

Choose Colors > Split Channel and choose RGB, HSL, or CMYK.
A new greyscale image opens for each color channel.

To combine color channels:

Open each color channel file.

Choose Colors > Combine Channel and choose Combine from RGB, Combine from HSL, or Combine from CMYK.

For each Channel source drop-down list, select the name of the file that contains that channel. For example, in the Combine RGB dialog, you might select the file Red1 as the red channel source.

Note: If you are combining channels that you split with the Split Channels command, mark the Sync check box to have Paint Shop Pro automatically fill in the Channel Source boxes with matching file names.

Click OK. Paint Shop Pro displays a new image file that combines the color channels you selected.

Color depth, also called bit depth, refers to the number of colors each pixel (and therefore its image) can display. As the color depth increases, the number of colors an image can display increases. Each pixel’s color information is stored in a certain number of computer bits—from 1 bit to 24 bits. In a 1-bit image, each pixel can display only one of two colors (black or white). In a 24-bit image, each pixel can display one of 16 million colors (2²⁴ or 2 colors for each bit). Images with a color depth of 16 million colors look best because they contain the most colors, but they also require the most memory to store and edit.

In Paint Shop Pro, you can create 2 color (1-bit), 16 color (4-bit), greyscale (8-bit), 256 color (8-bit), and 16 million color (24-bit) images. Many of Paint Shop Pro’s effect and correction commands work on 16 million color images only. Therefore, it is best to create most images using 16 million colors. After you finish working on an image, you can decrease its color depth and save it in another format.

Computer monitors also have a color depth that is determined by the monitor’s capabilities as well as the selected color setting. If you display an image with a higher color depth than the monitor can display, the image will have some color distortion. Some file formats limit the number of supported colors so that images display correctly on a variety of monitor types. For example, GIF images, a popular format for the Web, contain up to 256 colors (8-bit depth).

The number of colors actually used in an image is usually less than the color depth. For example, in a 16 million color image, the image is capable of displaying that many colors but may only use 50,000 colors. You can use the Image > Count Colors Used command to count the number of colors in a layer of the image.

To view the color depth of an image:

Do one of the following:

Look at the Status bar, which displays the active image’s pixel dimensions (the first two numbers) and color depth (the third number).

Press F9 to display the Overview palette, click the Info tab, and then view the Color Depth field.

Choose Image > Image Information, then look at the Pixel Depth/Color field.

To view the color depth of a monitor:

Choose Help > About Paint Shop Pro.

Click the System Info button.

Scroll down to the Video Driver Information section and look at the Number of Colors field.

To view the number of colors in a layer:

On the Layer palette, click the layer name that you want to check.

Choose Image > Count Image Colors.

If an image has a color depth less than 24-bit, you may want to increase the color depth while editing the image. Many of Paint Shop Pro’s effect and correction commands work only on images with 16 million colors. Depending on the color depth of your image, you can also increase an image to 16 colors (4-bit) or 256 colors (8-bit).

Because all colors are available in a 16 million colors (24-bit) image, increasing the color depth to 16 million colors (24-bit) automatically loads the Rainbow Color Picker. If your image has its own palette and you need to keep those exact colors, you may want to save the palette before increasing the color depth. After editing the image, reload its original palette.

To increase the color depth of an image:

Choose Colors > Increase Color Depth and choose the desired color depth: 16 Colors (4-Bit), 256 Colors (8-Bit), or 16 Million Colors (24-bit). Color depths not available for the active image are greyed out.

If you are creating an image for on-screen viewing, you may want to decrease the number of colors to make sure most monitors can display the image properly. Also, when you have finished editing an image, you may want to decrease color depth to save memory space.

Note:

If you are creating images for the Web, we recommend that you work with 16 million colors (24-bit) images so that all Paint Shop Pro commands are available. When you are ready to save the images, use the GIF optimizer or JPEG optimizer, which automatically decreases the color depth in the saved image but doesn’t change the color depth or layers of your original .PspImage file.

Depending upon the current color depth of your image, you can decrease its color depth to the following:

2 colors (1-bit) Converts to a black and white image and drastically reduces file size.

16 colors (4-bit) Converts to a color image with very limited colors. Use this option if your image uses a small number of colors and you want a smaller file size.

256 colors (8-bit) Converts to a color image that works well for on-screen viewing when your image will be viewed on a variety of monitor types. This is a helpful color depth for images viewed on the Web.

32K or 64K colors (24-bit) Converts to 32,000 or 64,000 colors within a 24-bit image. For images viewed on older monitors, this color depth results in better refresh rates.

X colors Converts to a color image with a number of colors that you specify (from 2 to 256). This color depth can produce smaller file sizes and faster download times for file formats such as GIF.

Note: When you change the color depth, you permanently change the colors of the image’s pixels. Before decreasing the color depth, do as much editing as possible in your original image and save a backup copy of the image that includes all layers.

To create a black-and-white image, you can decrease an image’s color depth to 2 colors. If your image is already black and white (perhaps it is a line drawing or a photograph to which you applied the Threshold command), decreasing the color depth to 2 colors can drastically reduce the file size.

When you decrease color depth to 2 colors, choosing from the variety of options is not an exact science. Try out several different combinations and see which produces your desired result.

To decrease the color depth to 2 colors:

Choose Image > Decrease Color Depth > 2 Colors (1-bit).

In the Palette component group box, choose the color channel to use for the final image: Grey (the lightness values), Red, Green, or Blue. Choosing Grey produces the best results in most cases. However, if the image consists mostly of a single color, selecting that color channel may produce the best results.

In the Reduction method group box, choose a color reduction method.

Note: With the Error Diffusion method, you must also select the Floyd-Steinberg, Burkes, or Stucki option, which are algorithms for the dithering pattern. Try them out to see what result you like best.

In the Palette weight group box, select an option:

Weighted

A weighted palette produces less dithering and produces sharper edges.

Non-weighted

A non-weighted palette produces more dithering and softer edges.

Note: Dithering places pixels of different colors or grey levels next to each other to simulate missing colors or greys.

Click OK.

To reduce the file size of images with few colors, decrease the color depth of an image to 16 colors (4-bit). This color depth is especially useful for simple graphics on Web pages that you want to load quickly.

Note: When you decrease color depth to 16 colors, the resulting image has an image palette that contains 16 specific colors. You can change any of those colors (and create interesting effects) by editing the image palette.

To decrease the color depth to 16 colors:

To emphasize the importance of certain colors in the conversion, select an area of your image (optional).

Choose Image > Decrease Color Depth > 16 Colors (4-bit).

In the Palette group box, choose a palette option.

In the Reduction Method group box, choose a color reduction method.

Note: The Ordered Dither option is available only for the Windows color palette.

In the Options group box, mark or clear these check boxes:

Boost marked colors by

If you selected an area of your image, you can mark this check box to make the colors in the selection more important by a factor of the value you enter. The selected colors will stand out from the rest of the image.

Reduce color bleeding

If you chose the Optimized Median Cut or the Optimized Octree palette and the Error Diffusion reduction method, you can mark this check box to make the left-to-right bleed effect of colors less noticeable.

Click OK.

To limit your image to colors most monitors can display and to reduce file size, decrease the color depth of the image to 256 colors (8-bit). You can choose a Web-safe palette that assures your image displays properly on a variety of computer monitors.

To decrease the color depth to 256 colors:

To emphasize the importance of certain colors in the conversion, select an area of your image (optional).

Choose Image > Decrease Color Depth > 256 Colors (8-bit).

In the Palette group box, choose a palette option.

In the Reduction method group box, choose a color reduction method.

Note: The Ordered Dither option is available only for the Standard/Web-safe color palette.

In the Options group box, mark or clear these check boxes:

Boost marked colors by

If you selected an area of your image and you are using the Optimized Median Cut method, mark this check box to make the colors in the selection more important by a factor from 1 to 10. The selected colors will stand out from the rest of the image.

Include Windows’ colors

If you chose the Optimized Median Cut or the Optimized Octree palette, you can mark this check box if you want the 16 standard Windows colors included in the converted image’s palette.

Reduce color bleeding

If you chose the Optimized Median Cut or the Optimized Octree palette and the Error Diffusion reduction method, you can mark this check box to make the left-to-right bleed effect of colors less noticeable.

Click OK.

To reduce the number of colors used in a 24-bit image, decrease the color depth of an image to 32K (32,000) or 64K (64,000) colors. Displaying images with 32K or 64K colors on older monitors results in better refresh rates than displaying 24-bit images with 16 million colors.

To decrease the color depth to 32K or 64K colors:

Choose Image > Decrease Color Depth and then choose 32K Colors or 64K Colors.

In the Reduction method group box, select the method.

Click OK.

To select the number of colors in an image, use the X Colors command to decrease the color depth of an image and reduce the file size. If you specify 16 or fewer colors, the image is saved as a 4-bit image. If you specify 17 to 256 colors, the image is saved as an 8-bit image. For some file formats, particularly GIF, file compression is sensitive to the number of colors in the image. For example, using 100 colors instead of 256 colors produces a smaller file size (and produces faster download times), even though both files are 8-bit images.

To decrease the color depth to a selected number of colors:

To emphasize the importance of certain colors in the conversion, select an area of your image (optional).

Choose Image > Decrease Color Depth > X Colors (4/8-bit).

In the Number of colors edit box, enter the number of colors (from 2 to 256) for the converted image’s palette.

In the Palette group box, select the palette options.

In the Reduction method group box, choose a color reduction method. See

In the Options group box, mark or clear these check boxes:

Boost marked colors by

If you selected an area of your image and you are using the Optimized Median Cut or Optimized Octree methods, mark this check box to make the colors in the selection more important by a factor from 1 to 10. The selected colors will stand out from the rest of the image.

Include Windows’ colors

Mark this check box if you want the 16 standard Windows colors included in the converted image’s palette.

Reduce color bleeding

If you chose the Error Diffusion reduction method, you can mark this check box to make the left-to-right bleed effect of colors less noticeable.

Click OK.

When you decrease an image’s color depth, you must select a color reduction method. Depending upon the color depth you select, two or three of these methods are available:

Nearest Color

Replaces the original color of a pixel with the color in the newly generated palette that is closest to the original RGB value. This method eliminates dithering and produces a high-contrast image. Simple graphics may look better with this method.

Error Diffusion

Replaces the original color of a pixel with the most similar color in the palette, but spreads the discrepancy between the original and new color to the surrounding pixels. As it replaces a color (working from the top left to the bottom right of the image), it adds the “error,” or discrepancy to the next pixel, before selecting the most similar color. This method produces a naturally looking image and often works best for photographs or complex graphics.

Ordered Dither Adjusts adjacent pixels so that two colors give the illusion of a third color and intermingles pixels to produce patterns based on a known palette. Use this method to give the image the appearance of containing more colors than it actually does. Images may appear to be composed of cross-hatches and dots and may have distinct patterns of light and dark areas.

About Palette Options

When you decrease an image’s color depth, you must select a palette option. Depending upon the color depth you select, two or three of these methods are available:

Optimized Median Cut

Measures and ranks each color by how frequently it occurs in the image, then uses the most frequently occurring colors to determine the new palette. Even if your image contains fewer colors than the palette that is generated, this method may not represent each color exactly. The method, therefore, is not as accurate as the Optimized Octree method, but it is better at weighting color importance.

Optimized Octree

Creates an eight-level “tree” with eight branching nodes totaling 256 individual “leaves” or colors to determine the new palette. This method attempts to reproduce each color in the original image, so if your image contains fewer colors than the palette that is generated, every color in the image is represented. This method is faster and more accurate than Optimized Median Cut, but it is not as good at weighting color importance.

Windows

Changes each pixel’s color to the nearest color in the Windows palette.

Standard/Web-Safe Palette

Changes each pixel’s color to the nearest color in the standard Web-safe palette. Use this method to create images for the Web that can be viewed without color distortion on most monitors.

An image palette is a collection of colors that an image uses—similar to a painter’s palette of paints. An image palette is a subset of all the colors your monitor can display.

Images with color depths of 16 to 256 colors have an image palette that contains those colors that are used in the image. You can edit this palette to fine-tune colors or create interesting color effects.

Images with a color depth of 16 million colors do not have an image palette because they can contain all the colors your computer can display. For these images, you can load an image palette to decrease the image’s color depth to 256 colors or 8-bit. Loading a palette produces the same result as using the Decrease Color Depth command, except that you are controlling which colors are used in the converted image.

Paint Shop Pro also includes a Safety palette for creating Web images that can be viewed without color distortion on most monitors. Using this palette produces the same result as using the Decrease Color Depth > 256 Colors (8-bit) command and selecting the Standard/Web-safe palette option.

You can also create and save your own palettes. Preset palettes are located in the Palettes folder of the Paint Shop Pro program folder. You can store your custom palettes there as well.

To edit an image palette of 16 to 256 color images:

Choose Image > Palette > Edit Palette.

Note: This command is not available for 16 million color images.

To change the sort order (or arrangement) of colors, select an option from the Sort Order drop-down list:

Palette Order (in order by the way the palette stores the colors), By Luminance (in order by lightness) or By Hue (in order by color).

To replace a color, double-click it. The Color dialog opens and displays the Jasc Color Picker.

Make your selection and click OK. Notice that the image updates with the new color. To return the palette to its original colors, on the Edit Palette dialog click the Revert button.

Click OK.

To save an image palette:

Choose Image > Palette > Save Palette.

Select the folder where you want to save the palette. It’s most convenient to save it in the Palettes folder of the Paint Shop Pro program folder, where the preset image palettes are saved.

In the File name edit box, type a name for the palette. Paint Shop Pro automatically adds the .PspPalette extension when you save the file.

In the Save as type box, select a palette format: Jasc palette (the default) or Microsoft (for use with other applications).

Click Save.

To load an image palette:

Choose Image > Palette > Load Palette.

Select the folder which contains the palette you want to load. Preset image palettes are stored in the Palettes folder of the Paint Shop Pro program folder.

Select the palette.

In the Apply palette using group box, select an option:

Nearest color matching

Changes each image color to the color in the palette that is the closest match.

Error diffusion dithering

Attempts to maintain the image’s appearance by dithering colors that are not in the palette. Dithering places pixels of different colors next to each other to simulate missing colors.

Maintain indexes

Assigns each color in the palette a sequential index number and does the same for each color in the image, then changes each color in the image to the like-numbered color in the palette.

Click Open. The palette is loaded and the image’s colors are updated.

Paint Shop Pro includes a Safety palette with 256 colors that are Web-safe—your images can be viewed without color distortion on most computer monitors. There are three ways to use this palette on an image:

Load the Safety palette into your image. For 16 million color (24-bit) images, this flattens the layers, reduces the image’s color depth to 256 colors (8-bit), and makes many of Paint Shop Pro’s effect and correction commands unavailable.

Decrease the image’s color depth to 256 colors and select the Standard/Web-Safe Palette option. Decreasing the color depth also flattens layers and makes some Paint Shop Pro commands unavailable.

Edit the image in 16 million colors (saving it in .PspImage format), then use the GIF or PNG optimizer to export a copy of the image. These optimizers use the Web-safe palette by default and decrease the color depth in the saved image. We recommend this alternative because it does not change the color depth or flatten the layers of your original .PspImage file and keeps all Paint Shop Pro effect and commands available.

;To load the Web-safe color palette:

Choose Image > Palette > Load Palette.

Select the Palettes folder of the Paint Shop Pro program folder.

Select the palette Safety.pal.

In the Apply palette using group box, select an option:

Nearest color matching

Changes each image color to the color in the palette that is the closest match.

Error diffusion dithering

Attempts to maintain the image’s appearance by dithering colors that are not in the palette. Dithering places pixels of different colors next to each other to simulate missing colors.

Maintain indexes

Assigns each color in the palette a sequential index number and does the same for each color in the image, then changes each color in the image to the like-numbered color in the palette. This option is not available for 16 million color images.

Click Open.

Paletted images (those with 256 or fewer colors, such as GIF or PNG files) do not support transparent backgrounds, but you often need a way to make part of your image transparent when displayed on a Web page. For example, you may have a round logo and you want the background of the Web page to display around the logo.

Most Web browsers can choose not to display one color, effectively making it transparent. In Paint Shop Pro you have two ways to make one color transparent:

Use the Set Palette Transparency command to make one color in an image palette transparent. The color can be the background color or any color from the image. To set a transparent color, the image must have one layer only and must use an image palette, which means the image must have a color depth less than 16 million colors (24-bit).

Edit the image in 16 million colors (saving it in .PspImage format), then use the GIF or PNG optimizer to export a copy of the image. With these optimizers you can set the transparency of the image. We recommend this alternative because it does not change the color depth or flatten the layers of your original .PspImage file and keeps all Paint Shop Pro effect and commands available.

If you decide to make one color transparent in your image, use the Set Palette Transparency command to select the color, and then use the View Palette Transparency command to display the transparent color in your image. You can also use the Set Palette Transparency command to change or undo the transparency of a color.

To make one image color transparent:

Choose Image > Palette > Set Palette Transparency.

If you are prompted to reduce the color depth and number of layers, click Yes to continue and then choose the options for decreasing color depth.

On the Set Palette Transparency dialog, select an option:

To undo the transparency of a color, select No Transparency.

To make the background color transparent, select Set the transparency value to the current background color.

To assign a specific color to be transparent, click the color on the image itself, enter a value in the edit box of the Set the transparency value to a palette entry option, or click the color box to select from the current color picker.

To view the transparency on the image, click the Proof button.

Click OK. The color is now transparent; however, it may still be displayed until you hide it.

To view or hide the transparency of a color:

Choose Image > Palette > View Palette Transparency.