Color counter Tool?
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: The Lounge
Forum Name: Resources and Support
Forum Discription: Help your fellow pixel artists out with links to good tutorials, other forums, software, fonts, etc. Bugs and support issues should go here as well.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13753
Printed Date: 09 September 2025 at 4:21pm
Topic: Color counter Tool?
Posted By: JerryPie
Subject: Color counter Tool?
Date Posted: 23 January 2012 at 5:03pm
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Hey guys, for as long as I've been with PJ I have yet to use a tool to count the pixels in a piece of work.
Usually im diligent about counting and keeping a good pallete on the side (I use MSpaint)... But today I was working, and playing around with some different colors, and really got into a piece I was working on...I didn't expect to continue and finish it, but I did.. anyway, I don't know how many colors are in it, and I need to find the stray pixels that are to close to another color. Anyone have a tool for this or a link? Thanks a ton!
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Replies:
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 23 January 2012 at 5:34pm
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Your pixel editor is the tool for this. If your pixel editor doesn't have this functionality you should probably question why you are using it. GraphicsGale does the trick for me. ------------- 
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Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 23 January 2012 at 5:37pm
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Originally posted by surt
Thanks for your concern, but I enjoy MSpaint. I'll stick to it for now :) ....in the mean time does anyone have a link to some kind of tool. I can't seem to find one on Iaza.comYour pixel editor is the tool for this. If your pixel editor doesn't have this functionality you should probably question why you are using it. GraphicsGale does the trick for me. ------------- |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 23 January 2012 at 5:39pm
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Colour counting tool: http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/download.html - http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/download.html
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Posted By: DawnBringer
Date Posted: 23 January 2012 at 6:22pm
| Don't come begging for features when you've reduced yourself to the idiocy of MSpain. This won't be the last tool you'll find missing...do your future self a favor and change program today, why not try Grafx2 f.ex. |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 23 January 2012 at 7:10pm
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Originally posted by DawnBringer
Okay enough of this egotistical pixel madness! I like MSpaint, I am comfortable with it...I also use photoshop for my other needs frequently, but when it comes to pixel art, i like the feel of MSpaint. --- Pleaes stop telling me I NEED to get GfxGale. I'm glad you people enjoy using it, I'm simply asking if anyone knows a link where I can count the number of colors in one of my pieces. I want to submit it to the PJ gallery, but would like to know the number before hand without having to tedeously pick through it color by color.
Don't come begging for features when you've reduced yourself to the idiocy of MSpain. This won't be the last tool you'll find missing...do your future self a favor and change program today, why not try Grafx2 f.ex. It's really annoying, this section is called Resources and Support for a reason. If I told you I couldn't use Gfx Gale, or it wouldn't work on my system, then would you offer me some Support? Thanks.. ------------- |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 23 January 2012 at 10:38pm
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http://hivemind.in/pj/specs/index.php - http://hivemind.in/pj/specs/index.php Thanks skamore. For people interested in the future, this is the PJ image checker. Great tool! ------------- |
Posted By: yrizoud
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 8:31am
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Hatch's color checker is perfect for analyzing online images, but how handy is it to upload an image while you're working on it! I think DB's point is that "color count" is the tip of the iceberg : as you said yourself: I need to find the stray pixels that are to close to another color.The list of colors is not enough: once you know that your image has two near-identical colors, you'll want to either : - track down the pixels that are of the least-used color, in order to re-pixel them - change everywhere (merge) color 1 into color2 Now that I think of it, maybe in MSPaint you can use the eraser trick, if you type out the exact color codes. But I find that extremely convoluted... |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 9:20am
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Yrizoud you're absolutely right.. I know it might be a pain for most people to think about the times they used MSpaint and how they would repixel something like that.. But I feel so comfrotable with it, there are just 1 or 2 features it doesn't have (like color counter). I dont even use eraser tool, its too slow. What I do is have the color I want replaced as my secondary color or (right click color) and then i select the entire image and drag it onto the new color. In 1 second it replaces all colors you needed to replace! :D------------- |
Posted By: yrizoud
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 12:33pm
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That's a trick I can't find anywhere online nor reproduce on my version of mspaint. Can you please elaborate, because it could benefit all the mspaint users. I just looked at your gallery. If you've made http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/63284.htm - this in a program that has no keyboard shortcuts for colorpicker or next/previous color, I'm torn between admiration and pity. |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 12:36pm
hahaha I made that 100% in MSpaint, the OLD SCHOOL version. I totally feel you guys for thinking im a moron for not upgrading. But I'm a very very stubborn person, and I just like things that im comfortable using. The current piece im working on right now that I mentioned above is this one.
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Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 12:41pm
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this piece i just posted is 47 colors. (thats what the color counter told me)... so I need to work it down to 32 I think.. but this is my newest piece ill be submitting shortly. I'm super stubborn and wont upgrade, but with the practice my level of skill with pixel art has really increased over the past few years. I owe PJ a lot..but I will never give up MSpaint, its just too good to me.. ------------- |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 1:04pm
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damn i just wrote a long detailed tutorial and it didnt go through.. ill try one more time. ------------- |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 1:25pm
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Okay so most people know about the eraser method when it comes to swapping out colors quickly.. I'll give a brief demonstration of the eraser method before explaining a much quicker way to do the entire picture.
First on the eraser method you will have an image. In this case its the red man with a couple of dark red spots. By selecting the eraser tool and making my secondary color (right click color) somthing other than white, I can now alter this color only in the image. Lets demonstrate --
  so here we effectively painted the area behind the red man without altering any pixels on him. or you can pick red primary, dark red secondary and turn the man dark red without painting the background any other color... notice how I did this to the lower half of his body. so 2 different techniques were used here. ------------- |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 1:33pm
now i'll show you the image selection tool method. --- You may have used this tool before to select parts of an image and never knew it could be used the same way as the eraser tool. What you do is pick the Dotted line box, or the dotted star and select the area of the image you want to move (or you can select the entire image) .... When picking the "image selection" tool, you will notice 2 options on the lower part of your tool bar. There are two seperate examples of a group of shapes with the dotted line box through them. In the top example, you'll see that there is a solid background behind the green square shape. -- This is the standard selection tool, and this will take every part of the image with it when you copy or cut. --- The lower option has the 3 shapes and the green square has a transparent background. By selecting this option, it will now exclude ANY secondary color you have selected. So if we have dark red selected, and move the image to another location, it will leave behind all dark red pixels. ---- here is an example of the red man using this procedure.
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Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 1:35pm
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here is an example of a piece from my gallery using this method. it might not be needed all the time, but it comes in handy when you need to get rid of a single color over an entire image. ------------- |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 24 January 2012 at 1:36pm
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Originally posted by yrizoud
That's a trick I can't find anywhere online nor reproduce on my version of mspaint. Can you please elaborate, because it could benefit all the mspaint users. I just looked at your gallery. If you've made http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/63284.htm - this in a program that has no keyboard shortcuts for colorpicker or next/previous color, I'm torn between admiration and pity. Hope this helps bro! ------------- |
Posted By: Long
Date Posted: 25 January 2012 at 5:44am
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Or you could just increase the erasers' size by pressing(ctrl +)
And here I thought I'm the only nutcase still sticking to MS Paint:D |
Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 25 January 2012 at 9:18am
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Originally posted by Dragonwarrior0
Or you could just increase the erasers' size by pressing(ctrl +) And here I thought I'm the only nutcase still sticking to MS Paint:D Well with the new MSpaint you can continue increasing the eraser size. But the MSpaint that they've given us with Windows 7 and Vista bothers me.. A lot of the tools are rearranged so its really hard to navagate. If you use the original MSpaint provided on 95-98-2000-XP you do not have the option to increase the eraser size past 3 or 4. So you'll have to use the method I showed.
i'm glad to see that there is another fanatic in the group!! ------------- |
Posted By: KittenMaster
Date Posted: 25 January 2012 at 1:12pm
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My desire is: If I ever want to use MS Paint, I may as well go all the way and use Windows 3.x Paint. Unfortunately it doesn't work on newer OSes.
Also, I'm pretty sure you can get an XP version of MS Paint somewhere out there if you use Windows 7. do your future self a favor and change program today, why not try Grafx2 f.ex. Graphics Gale is a much more natural upgrade from MS Paint than GraFX2 and makes more sense as a suggestion.
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Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 25 January 2012 at 3:29pm
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Originally posted by KittenMaster
Also, I'm pretty sure you can get an XP version of MS Paint somewhere out there if you use Windows 7. There is an old school download of the original MSpaint for windows 7. Thats what I use. It's great! I will NEVER upgrade. :) ------------- |