ChromaMatch User Guide

Overview

ChromaMatch takes a palette and shifts the colors of a target layer to match it. The palette can come from a photo on disk, from any document or layer already open in Photoshop, from the Swatches panel, from an .ase file, from pasted hex codes, or from a color harmony built on a single seed color.

The result is a Color Lookup adjustment layer clipped to your target. Your pixels are never touched, and the layer remembers its palette and settings, so you can select it later and keep editing.

Requirements

• Adobe Photoshop 26.0 or later, on macOS or Windows.
• RGB documents, 8 or 16 bits per channel.
• Best results in documents tagged sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), Display P3 or ProPhoto RGB. Other profiles work, with a warning (see Color spaces).

CMYK, Lab, Grayscale, Indexed, Duotone, Bitmap, Multichannel and 32-bit documents are not supported. ChromaMatch tells you how to convert them (for example Image > Mode > RGB Color).

Installing

Install ChromaMatch from the package you received (a .ccx file opens in Creative Cloud and installs automatically). Then open it from Photoshop's Plugins > ChromaMatch menu.

The first time you use certain features, Photoshop asks for permission:

• File access, for opening reference images and .ase files and for saving exports.
• Opening links, for the User guide button, which opens this page in your web browser.

Quick start

1. Select a target layer in the Layers panel. If the document has only one layer, it is picked automatically.
2. Load a palette. In the ChromaMatch panel, click Load reference image… and pick a photo whose colors you like. ChromaMatch extracts 6 dominant colors from it.
3. Check the preview. The ChromaMatch Workspace window opens with the palette, a Before/After preview and the settings.
4. Fine-tune with the Color and Contrast sliders, or try another match mode.
5. Click Apply. A Color Lookup layer named ChromaMatch is added, clipped to your target.

Panel and workspace

ChromaMatch has two parts:

• The ChromaMatch panel is where a palette comes from: Reference image, Palette (.ase, Swatches panel, recent palettes, pasted hex codes) and Harmony. At the bottom, User guide opens this page.
• The ChromaMatch Workspace is a floating window that opens once a palette is loaded. It holds everything else: the palette and swatch editor, matching mode, mapping, preview, adjustments, output and batch. It does not block Photoshop, so you can keep working while it is open.

If you close the workspace, click Open workspace in the panel to bring it back. Reset clears everything and closes it.

The status line at the top of both shows what ChromaMatch is doing, and warnings in red.

Getting a palette

Reference image

Click Load reference image… and choose any image Photoshop can open: JPG, PNG, TIFF, PSD/PSB, WebP, HEIC/HEIF (Windows needs the HEIF extension) or camera raw (opened with Camera Raw's defaults). ChromaMatch extracts its dominant colors, each with its share of the image. The same image always gives the same palette.

An open document or layer

Pick any open RGB document, or one of its layers, from the Open document or layer list. It is read directly, so nothing flashes open, and it doesn't have to be the active document. To sample just part of it (say, the sky), make a selection in that document and check Selection only before picking it.

Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase)

Click Load palette (.ase)… to import a palette from Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Adobe Color or a brand guide. RGB, Lab, Gray and CMYK colors are read (CMYK is converted without a profile, so treat it as approximate). Groups are flattened, up to 24 colors.

Swatches panel

Click Swatches panel to use Photoshop's own swatches. When the panel has several groups, a picker lets you choose one.

Pasted hex codes

Paste a list into the hex field and click Use (or press Enter). Any separator works: commas, spaces or one per line. You can even paste a palette URL such as coolors.co/264653-2a9d8f-e9c46a. Add a share after a code (#c87a3c 32%) to weight it; otherwise all colors count equally. Up to 24 colors.

Harmony

Build a palette from one seed color, with no reference at all. See Harmonies.

Recent palettes

The last 8 palettes you loaded, saved or applied are kept between sessions. Palettes you saved or applied also bring back their slider settings.

An existing ChromaMatch layer

Select a layer that already has a ChromaMatch look and its palette and settings reload automatically. See Applying and re-editing.

Editing the palette

Click any swatch in the workspace to open it in the Selected swatch editor.

• Use switches the swatch on or off. A swatch that is off keeps its weight for later.
• Weight sets how much the swatch counts. The other swatches keep their proportions.
• Remove deletes it from the palette.
• Hex field: type #rrggbb or #rgb and press Enter to change the color.
• Color picker… (or click the color chip) opens Photoshop's color picker.
• L, C, h nudges: the − and + buttons step lightness, chroma (colorfulness) and hue. Shift-click for a step five times bigger. If a color goes beyond what sRGB can show, it is pulled back in at the same lightness and the editor tells you.

Whole-palette tools

• − / + changes the number of swatches (2 to 12) and re-extracts from the reference, or regenerates a harmony. It is available for reference images, open documents and harmonies. Note that it replaces your swatch edits.
• Rotate hue turns every swatch's hue at once, from −180° to +180°. Dragging back to 0° restores the original colors exactly.
• Add a color by hex (a pasted list adds them all), or Foreground to add Photoshop's foreground color.
• Undo and Redo step back and forward through your palette and slider edits, including Remove. Cmd/Ctrl+Z and Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+Z work too when the panel has focus. A slider drag counts as one step. Loading a new palette or reference starts the history over.

Saving a palette

Pick a format and click Save palette…. The format is remembered.

Harmonies

A harmony is a palette generated from one seed color by turning its hue:

1. Choose a scheme from the Harmony picker.
2. Type a seed color (#rrggbb) and click Generate, or click Foreground to use Photoshop's foreground color, or Selected swatch to build on a swatch in the editor.

The seed is always kept exactly as the first swatch. The other swatches spread over a range of lightness so your image keeps its contrast; use 3 or more swatches when contrast matters. Changing the scheme regenerates the palette from the same seed. A gray seed has no hue to build on, so pick a seed with some color.

Matching modes

The Matching box in the workspace picks how the palette drives the change.

Global mode

The target as a whole is matched to the palette, weighted by each swatch's share. Choose how with Match:

Swatch-to-swatch mode

You decide exactly which color becomes which. The target is split into its own colors (shown in the Mapping box), and each is paired with a palette swatch, dark to dark and light to light.

• Re-pair: click a row in the Mapping box, then click a palette swatch. Several target colors can share one swatch.
• Keep original leaves the selected target color unchanged, a way to protect it by hand.
• Auto-pair discards your manual pairs and pairs everything again.
• − / + in the Mapping box changes how many colors the target is split into (2 to 12).
• Blend (under Advanced) sets how softly neighboring colors share their shifts. Lower is more literal, higher is smoother.

Color transitions stay smooth, so there are no seams in the result.

Adjustments

Protected areas still follow the Contrast change, so they blend in naturally. Sliders that don't apply to the current mode are disabled.

Preview

The preview uses exactly the same mapping that Apply bakes into the layer, so what you see is what you get.

• View:
  • Before | After: side by side.
  • Split: one larger image; drag Wipe to move the line between Before and After.
  • Reference | After: the source of the palette next to the result. A palette without an image (an .ase, a harmony and so on) shows as color bands.
• Cells: 48, 64 or 96 cells on the long side. More is finer but slower to redraw.
• Hold to compare: hold the button (or Space / Enter while it has focus) to see the target without the look.

The view and cell count are remembered between sessions.

Selections

Limiting the target

When the target's document has a selection, ChromaMatch analyzes only the selected part, and Apply masks the layer with it. Selection only under the preview is on by default; turn it off to recolor the whole layer even with a selection active. The text beside it shows how much of the layer is selected.

• The panel follows the selection as you change it with the marquee, lasso, wand or Select menu.
• A pixel counts when it is at least half selected; the layer mask keeps the full feather.
• If the selection changed since the preview, Apply refreshes the preview and stops, so you never apply a look you haven't seen. Click Apply again.
• Update on an existing layer replaces its mask with the selection only when Selection only is in use, so a mask you painted by hand is kept otherwise.

Sampling a palette from part of an image

1. In the source document, select the area you want, such as the sky.
2. In the panel, check Selection only under the document list.
3. Pick that document or layer from the list. The palette now comes from the selection only.

The palette is a snapshot, so you can then select a different area to recolor, even in the same document. To sample part of a file on disk, open it in Photoshop first and pick it from the document list.

Applying and re-editing

Apply

Apply adds a Color Lookup layer named ChromaMatch, clipped to the target and masked by the selection if there is one. The palette and settings are stored in the layer.

If the target already has a ChromaMatch layer, a dialog asks: Yes updates it in place, No adds a second layer. Esc cancels.

Re-editing a look

Select the target (or its ChromaMatch layer) and the panel reloads the saved palette and settings, with no need for the reference image. Change anything and Apply again to update it.

Other actions

• Add swatches adds the active palette to Photoshop's Swatches panel.
• Reset returns ChromaMatch to its freshly opened state.

Targets

• Selecting an adjustment layer targets the first pixel layer below it. Groups can't be targets.
• If nothing is selected and the document has one layer, that layer is used.

Batch matching

Make a whole shoot or series consistent. Every target gets its own correction, computed from its own pixels, so a warm frame and a cool frame both land on the palette instead of sharing one fix.

1. Load and tune the palette as usual.
2. In the Batch box, choose Selected layers (every layer selected in the active document; Shift- or Ctrl/Cmd-click them in the Layers panel) or All open documents (the selected layer in each, or its only layer).
3. Check the list of targets and anything skipped, then click Apply to batch.

• If any target already has a ChromaMatch layer, one dialog asks for the whole batch: update (Yes) or add new (No).
• While it runs, the button becomes Stop. A target that fails is reported and the batch moves on.
• Each target is one History step in its own document, and each layer can be reopened and edited on its own afterwards.
• Only the panel's own target uses the selection mask and manual swatch pairs; the others are matched as whole layers with automatic pairs.

Exporting

LUTs and profiles

Pick a format and size under the output buttons, then click Export LUT…. The file is named after the reference (for example ChromaMatch - Sunset.cube).

LUT size: 33³ (standard) or 65³ (finer, for grading apps, about 8 times larger). Camera Raw profiles are always 32³. Apply in Photoshop always uses 33³.

Installing a Camera Raw profile

Use Import Profiles & Presets in Camera Raw or Lightroom, or copy the file into Camera Raw's Settings folder:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings

It appears in a ChromaMatch profile group. Exporting the same look under the same name replaces it.

To export the palette itself rather than the look, see Saving a palette.

Color spaces

ChromaMatch builds each look for the document's own color space, so the applied layer matches the preview in sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), Display P3 and ProPhoto RGB documents. The status line names the space whenever it isn't sRGB.

Documents with other profiles (eciRGB, Rec. 2020, camera profiles) or no profile still work, but colors may drift, and a red warning says so. For accurate results, use Edit > Convert to Profile to convert to sRGB, or assign a supported profile.

Tips and troubleshooting

Getting a better match

• Start with Mean & spread. If the look feels too flat or too generic, try Full distribution; if only the tones feel off, try Tone curve.
• Too strong? Lower Color, or lower the layer's opacity in the Layers panel.
• Faces going odd? Raise Protect skin. Whites picking up a tint? Raise Protect neutrals.
• Blues turning purple? Switch Color math to Oklab.
• Noise or banding in a flat image? Lower Stretch limit.
• A reference with a big area you don't want (say, a black border)? Switch that swatch off, or sample the palette from a selection.

Common messages