How to Increase the Colors in a Picture With a Paint Program

Some image editing tasks require more colors in a picture. Or you might just want to see how a picture looks with more colors. These instructions should work for most paint programs.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet Access
• Adobe Photoshop
• Paint Shop Pro

1. Open your image editing program. Locate the picture and select Open or double-click to open it.
2. Look for the Colors or Mode menu command and click on it to pull down a menu.
3. Select the color choice for the picture. Use the radio buttons and commands to change the color options.
4. Select OK and preview the picture. If the result is unsatisfactory, open the Edit menu and choose Undo.
5. Open the File menu and choose Save or Save As to save the new picture.

Tips & Warnings

• Most photographs have a color depth of 16 million colors and can be decreased to 256,000 (256K) colors without a significant reduction in quality. Going below 256K colors, however, can make the image appear jagged, grainy or discolored.
• The number of colors is determined by the "pixel depth," which is the amount of color for each pixel. The greater the pixel depth, the more detail in the photograph.
• Nonphotographic images are generally 256K or lower because they don't require as much detail.
• If the color choice is grayed out, the photograph is at the maximum allowable color depth (16 million colors).
• Increasing the number of colors will increase the image's file size, so consider this if you plan to use the image on the Web. (Large images take longer to download, and Web surfers tend not to like pages that download slowly.)
• Use the Save As command to save the picture under a new name, such as coloredimage.jpg, so that you keep the original file as well.
• Obtain permission before using any unlicensed or copyrighted clip art.
• Don't use images from another Web page without permission from the site's owner.