color-palette README

Set of Python (+Qt) scripts to work with colors, color harmonies, mixing of colors, and edit color palettes.

What can it do currently is:

• Work with colors. There is Color class in color.py (based on QColor), and you
  can convert it from/to different color models. There are some standard models
  supported (RGB, CMYK, HSV) as well as some experimental (RYB). Some models
  implementation is depending on python LCMS bindings (LCh, Lab).
• RYB color model implementation is based on HCY: it is in fact H'CY, where
  C and Y are the same as in HCY, but Hue is adopted for RYB color wheel.
• Mix colors. There are some set of color-mixing algorithms. Currently
  implemented algorithms just convert color to some color space (LCh, for
  example), and do linear interpolation in that space.
• Calculate color harmonies. There are two basic classes: Harmony and Shader.
  Harmony is an algorithm how to get some list of harmonic (well, in some way)
  colors from one color. Shader is an algorithm how to get a list of similar
  shades of one color. Combining Harmonies and Shaders, one can potentially get
  some interesting results.
• There is some set of color-related widgets for PyQt4, for example - a widget
  which displays color and lets you select another color by clicking on it.
• There is also a color-selector widget, which can work with different color
  models. Currently, it works more or less well with HLS, HCY, RYB and LCh
  models.
• Pick colors from anywhere on the screen.
• Another color-selector widget is specific for HCY model; but this widget
  also indicates harmonized colors more clearly. And moreover, it allows user
  to edit color harmony manually by dragging harmonized color indicators.
• There is a port of my palette implementation for MyPaint
  (http://wiki.mypaint.info/Iportnovs_en#Palette) to PyQt4. This implementation
  is split into several modules: one for palette generation and handling
  (totally independent of any GUI, except of my Color and Mixer classes, which
  are not actually GUI); one for rendering palette into QImage; and one for
  displaying and editing palette using PyQt4 widget.
• Palettes can be saved or loaded from different formats. Currently supported are:
  • Gimp palettes (gpl) - read and write
  • Krita 4.0+ palettes (kpl) - read and write. Only 8-bit RGB is supported
    for now, color profiles are ignored.
  • XML palettes from old MyPaint implementation - read only
  • XML palettes from paletton.com - read only
  • CSS files - read and write. NB: when saving CSS, only colors are saved,
    other rules are not.
  • Scribus XML color swatches files - read and write. It reads RGB and CMYK
    values, but writes only RGB.
  • SVG files - read and write. When saving, an image of table with square
    swatches is saved.
  • Adobe ASE files - read and write.
  • Adobe ACO files - read only.
  • Raster images (JPEG, PNG etc). Most used colors are extracted from image
    by using simplified cluster-analysis algorithm. When saving, an image of
    table with square swatches is saved.
• Support for loading palettes from Colorlovers.com.
• There is also sort of "magic" SVG coloring tool. You can load SVG file, and
  press "Colorize from swatches" (or "Colorize from palette"). Tool will change
  colors in your picture to colors from swatches (or palette), trying to save
  colors relationships: change contrast colors to contrast, similar to similar.
  "AI" is poor, but in many cases you can get good results. You can also save
  resulting SVG file.

There is also some old pygtk stuff, maybe it will be usefull for someone.

For documentation, please see Palette editor wiki.

You can try launch&play with some testing executable scripts:

• palette_viewer.py — a viewer for palette files. All formats listed above are
  supported.
• palette_editor.py — a script for testing GUI, showing palette editor, color selector,
  harmonic colors generation.

License: GPLv2 or any later — due to use of PyQt4.