Color Palette Management

Overview

A well-chosen color palette defines your game's visual identity. Limiting your palette also creates a cohesive look: NES games used 54 colors total, yet produced iconic, memorable art. spritesynth supports built-in retro palettes, custom palette creation, and palette export for use in other tools.

Step 1: Choose a Built-in Palette

Built-in palettes are available directly in the editor's color panel:

Select a palette in the editor and all drawing tools are constrained to those colors.

Step 2: Create a Custom Palette

Define your own palette from scratch or by extracting colors from an existing sprite:

curl -X POST https://api.spritesynth.com/v1/image-ops/to-pixel \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "image": "base64_encoded_reference_image",
    "palette_size": 16
  }'

Save the resulting palette in the editor for reuse across your project.

Step 3: Palette Swap with Image Editing

Apply a palette swap to an existing generated asset:

curl -X POST https://api.spritesynth.com/v1/image-ops/edit \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "image": "base64_encoded_sprite",
    "prompt": "swap green tones to purple tones, keep shadows and highlights, pixel art",
    "width": 64,
    "height": 64
  }'

This endpoint edits the image to match a new color scheme while preserving shading, line art, and detail — perfect for creating biome or faction color variants from a single base sprite.

Step 4: Export and Import Palettes

Share palettes between projects or external tools:

curl -X POST https://api.spritesynth.com/v1/templates \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "My Custom Forest Palette",
    "type": "generation",
    "config": {
      "palette": ["#2d1b00", "#4a3b22", "#6b8e23", "#8fbc8f", "#2e8b57"]
    }
  }'

Export as JSON for use in Aseprite, Pyxel Edit, or your game engine's palette system.

Tips

• Start with fewer colors — Adding colors is easier than removing them. Begin with 8-16 colors per asset type.
• Palette per biome — Create separate palettes for each game area to give distinct visual identities.
• Test colorblind accessibility — Ensure your palette has enough contrast between key gameplay elements.