ColourPal Help
For ColourPal 1.0
ColourPal is built on a single rule: three colours always sum to a target. Pick any two, and the maths writes the third — along with the four blends and the centre that complete your palette.
The Venn diagram is the palette
The three outer circles are your primaries — A, B, and C. Where two circles overlap you see their pairwise blend. Where all three meet in the centre you see the target colour the palette is summing to. Every visible colour comes from this geometry: three primaries, three pairwise blends (A+B, A+C, B+C), one centre, plus the page background. Seven palette colours, mathematically guaranteed to play together.
Working with the diagram
- Hue arcs — drag each circle’s outer arc to change that circle’s hue without touching the others. The constraint solver redistributes the remaining circles so that A+B+C still equals the target.
- Saturation and lightness — two side sliders move every primary together (Global Saturation on one side, Blended Luminance on the other), keeping the palette’s character while shifting its mood.
- Inner ring — the inner ring of each circle adjusts that single primary’s saturation without affecting the others.
Three states for every swatch
Each colour swatch is in one of three states:
- Calculated — the default. The colour follows the constraint solver as you change other inputs.
- Locked — the colour is pinned to its exact RGB. Other circles redistribute around it. Indicated by a padlock.
- Free — the colour holds its current value but is decoupled from the global sliders. Its hue, saturation, and lightness arcs remain interactive so you can refine it manually. Indicated by a marching-ants outline.
When you exit Locked mode, Free mode is engaged automatically so the colour stays exactly where you pinned it rather than snapping back to whatever the constraint solver would now compute.
Quick keys
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Click swatch | Copy hex |
| Double-click swatch | Edit hex |
| ⌘-click | Lock that colour |
| ⌥-click | Set Free (manual tweak) |
| Undo | ⌘ Z |
| Redo | ⌘ ⇧ Z |
| Click preview element | Open the swatch picker for that role |
| Click role badge | Open the role picker for that swatch |
Snapshots
Eight snapshot slots sit at the bottom of the window. ⌘-click a slot to save the current palette into it; click without a modifier to recall it. ⌘-click the “Snapshots” label to clear all eight at once.
Preview page
Scroll down past the diagram to the live editorial preview. Every meaningful element — heading, body text, highlight links, surface panels — is mapped to one of the seven palette colour-ids. Click any element to open the swatch picker and reassign it. Click a swatch’s role badge to see (and toggle) which roles are currently using that colour.
ColourPal Studio
The free version of ColourPal lets you explore palettes and copy individual hex values. ColourPal Studio is a one-off in-app purchase that unlocks the full workflow: lock and Free modes, snapshots, hex input, the eyedropper, save/load .colourpal files, and full export to .ase, CSS variables, Tailwind config, Material Design tokens, Android XML, GIMP palette, Xcode asset catalog, WordPress theme.json, and DTCG.
File format
ColourPal saves to .colourpal files — a small JSON document containing your full palette state plus a Venn diagram thumbnail. Files round-trip cleanly between machines. Older files (before role-mapping was added) load with sensible defaults.
Reduced motion and accessibility
ColourPal respects your system’s “Reduce motion” setting — the hue arc inertia, scroll-snap, and other animations are disabled when that’s on. Every interactive control is keyboard-reachable; the swatch and role pickers support arrow-key navigation, Home/End, and Esc to dismiss.
Reporting a bug or asking a question
Get in touch via the 3DAV contact form with a description of what happened and what you expected. If a particular palette is misbehaving, please mention that you can share a saved .colourpal file and we’ll follow up.