Photoshop Color: Custom Photoshop Color Swatches and Sets

Step 8: Load The Custom Color Swatch Set

The next time you want to use your custom color swatch set, all you need to do is click once again on the right-pointing arrow at the top of the Swatches palette to access the palette menu. If you look down at the bottom of the menu, you'll see a list of additional color swatch sets that are available. Most of these are additional sets that installed with Photoshop, but since Photoshop saves our custom swatch sets in the same directory as the other sets it comes with, you'll find your custom sets listed here as well. All you need to do is click on the name of your custom set to select it. Photoshop lists the names of the sets in alphabetical order, so my "Autumn Leaves" set is listed second from the top:

Again, Photoshop will ask you if you want to replace your existing swatches with the new ones or if you simply want to append them to the list. I'm going to click OK to replace the default swatches with my Autumn Leaves swatches:

And just like that, my custom "Autumn Leaves" swatches are loaded into my Swatches palette for me, ready to use:

Choosing A New Foreground Color From The Swatches Palette

The great thing about using color swatches is that they're essentially preset colors, meaning colors that we've already chosen (or colors that Adobe has already chosen if we're working with swatch sets that installed with Photoshop), which means we don't have to keep choosing them with Photoshop's Color Picker every time we need them. To select any of the colors in the Swatches palette, simply hover your mouse over the color swatch. You'll see your mouse cursor change into the Eyedropper icon. Then click on the color to select it. Here, I'm choosing the orange color, second from the left:

After clicking on it, I can see by looking at the Foreground color swatch in the Tools palette that the color I just clicked on has indeed been selected:

Choosing A New Background Color From The Swatches Palette

To select a color to use as your Background color, simply hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key and click on the color you want in the Swatches palette. Here, I'm clicking on a dark red color while holding down "Ctrl/Command":

Now if I look again in my Tools palette, I can see that the Background color swatch is filled with the dark red color I just clicked on:

I can now use the colors from my "Autumn Leaves" swatch set whenever I want, however I want! Here I've created a simple design for a poem using the colors from my swatch set, along with the "Scattered Maple Leaves" brush that ships with Photoshop:

And there we go! That's how easy it is to create your very own custom color swatches and swatch sets in Photoshop!