Comic Book Color Swatches for Photoshop

Classic Comics Color GuideA recent blog post by Ed Piskor generated some interest in the old craft of coloring comic books in the days before comics were printed using full-process color. Ed created a chart showing all 64 colors available in most comics of the bygone era. I also enjoyed an article at the CO2 Comics Blog that went into depth on the classic comics coloring process and how it evolved over the years. What I thought was missing, however, was an easy way for folks to use the same colors to get a “Silver Age” effect in their own comics. To that end, I wrote a script to generate a swatch palette for use in Photoshop, Illustrator, or other graphics software. But I didn’t stop there! I also created palettes that recreated the even-more-limited Golden Age palette, as well as the expanded palettes that began to appear in the 1980s. You can download my palettes here.

I have made the palettes available in both the .ACO (Adobe Photoshop Color File) and .ASE (Adobe Swatch Exchange) file formats. The .ASE format may be the most widely useful across various software. Photoshop can read the .ASE format, too, but it defaults to .ACO format, so I’ve just included both.

Each color is named using the standard color coding conventions of the day. Color codes were labeled using the codes R, B, and Y for magenta, cyan, and yellow (and sometimes K for black), plus a code representing the percent of the screen used. A 2 meant a 25% screen, a 3 meant a 50% screen, and a 4 meant either a 70% or a 75% screen, depending on the publisher. A code with no number meant a 100% screen, and colors with no screen at all were omitted. Thus, a screen of 25% yellow, 50% magenta, and 100% cyan would be Y2R3B. All of the palettes include white as the first swatch (that is, zero screen of any color or black).

Enjoy them, and let me know any feedback/corrections/omissions/etc.

 

6 thoughts on “Comic Book Color Swatches for Photoshop

  1. Pingback: Create Old Comic Books Effects – AutoDrawTools

  2. Hello,

    Stumbled upon this article and attempted to download the zip file for the photoshop swatches. It appears not to work anymore, but probably for the best as I noticed the article was from 2011.

    Wondering if you have a newer up to date version of this file?

    Thanks

  3. Hmm. I’m not sure what problem you’re having. When you click on the link that says “download my palettes here,” you should get the .zip with the palettes. (Unfortunately, Ed Piskor’s links no longer seem to work. I’ll have to fix that at some point.)

  4. Working on a set of superhero illustrations and character designs for a game jam, and after going down the research rabbit hole about colors in old superhero comics I found your blog! I used your pallets as a jumping off point for character colors to help give it that comicy feel. Saved me from having to find the colors and bring them in myself! Thanks!

  5. Hi! Sadly nothing happens after clicking at “download my palettes here”. Cheers!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.