The way it is now, if I sort with "hue", then brightness isn't taken into account. So I get a spectrum of colours that are very nicely ordered in terms of colour, but they are interspersed with fairly neutral dark colours.
If I sort with brightness, hue is not taken into account. So I get a spectrum of colours that are all over the place, going from dark to light. Not much help at all unless I am colour blind.
If I sort with saturation, I still get a spectrum of colours that are all over the place, going from pale to vibrant. Still not much help.
If I sort with HSB, it's actually produces the exact same result as sorting by hue alone.
So I would like to see a true HSB sorting. Also, I would like to be able to have the sorting apply to only a part of the colour palette. So for example to sort just the colours I have selected. This would make it easier to sort the greyscale bits of the palette. Or the most recently added colours.
I find that apart from adding 1,2 or 3 colours, I won't add to my colour palette for months, and then I'll realise a part of my colour palette is neglected (orange say, or steely blue colours, or browns) So I get in there and add about 12, 24 or 36 colours while I am there anyway. It's really great that I can add this many colours at a time! But trying to sort those with my existing palette is a bit of a nightmare.
Because the other problem is that in the palette editor, I can't seem to select 8 colours from the current palette and move them all in one go. Do I really have to move them all one at a time? That is getting a bit tedious. Especially when I know I'm going to have to make a separate CMYK palette and do this all over again...
Thanks for taking the time to answer.
The trouble I find with the palette libraries is that there are often WAY too many colours to choose from. They are often too similar in appearance when they don't need to be, and it is hard to choose one.
Here is the palette organisation scheme I am working on:
http://www.lesliedeanbrown.com/illustration/Leslie-palette.gif
Keep in mind that it is always a work in progress and I organise things by eye, so it is never going to look perfect. It takes a lot of time.
(I might upload it so it is easier to see. The color areas look very small on the upload)
At first it looks all over the place, but then you notice a rudimentry order.
What I have tried to do is separate the palette into a few different sections. First you have straight greys. Then you have the more neutral colours separated from the saturated colours. In my case I have green greys, blue greys and red greys which lead into red browns. From there I had to add some skin tones and then in finally goes into a more traditional ROYGBV pattern.
It's very fast for me to find a colour using this approach. Not so easy to get a palette. It has taken me hours and hours and hours to get this palette.
Towards the end of the palette I have had to add in more colours to fill the gaps, so they are organised in the traditional way. I'll slowly incorporate those into the existing one.
Like everything, there is s kind of mathematics to this. I prefer to mix (use) colours with the RGB system. And I almost never 'mix' them using the RGB slider. I use what is already there, or I go hunting for more colours (if I have to).
With the ROYGBV section, notice there are some darker colours in there, but they still harmonise. If they get too dark or light they look out of place.
I'm going to have to work on the pastels, but I don't use many pastel colours because I personally find them a bit insipid and it is not part of my illustration style. I only use them for the highlights.
So the greys are approximately equal values of R, G and B. The hardest colours for me to find in Coreldraw were mushroom greys, steel/blue greys. You get those by using equal values of two colours and every so slightly more or less of the other one. And skin tones.
The browns are fairly easy as they are always say 150R, 100G, 50B. Or 125R, 100G, 75B. Or 110R, 100G, 90B. Doesn't always have to be 100G, but if you want a straight brown, it's more that the R and B is offset by the about the same amount.
I have found for the most part that that if either R, G or B is less than about 128, it looks too dark to be included in the ROYGBV section.
Well I have spent even more time arranging my colours. It may not speed up the time it takes to do a drawing, but I find that the results look way better if you can get exactly the colour you are looking for...
If people are interested I may offer my palette so that people can download it...