Mosaic Color Editor Help

Overview
Apply palette
Edit colors
Merge colors
Mosaic
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Tutorials
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Support

Overview

The Mosaic Color Editor is used to reduce and/or change Mosaic tiles colors. In the editor, colors can be merged together, or replaced completely. Merging colors causes tiles of the source color to become the color of the destination color. Replacing a color causes all of the tiles with the source color to be replaced with a different color.

About: Briefly describes ColorHints Mosaic and provides links to the Swaystairs web site, the on-line documentation, a link to send Email to support@swaystairs.com, and the version and build number of ColorHints Mosaic. A privacy statement is also provided.
Help: A condensed version of help for the Mosaic Color Editor
Apply palette…: When enabled, switch to Apply palette… mode
Edit colors…: When enabled, switch to Edit colors… mode
Merge colors…: When enabled, switch to Merge colors… mode
Undo All: Undo all edits. This action requires confirmation before proceeding.

Basics

The Mosaic editor has two parts:

Left	Shows either the color editor (Editor colors…), the merge colors tool (Merge colors…), or the Apply palette tool (Apply palette…)
Right	Displays the Mosaic with tile colors as edited

The space allocated to the left and right sides can be changed by

The size adjustment tool found between the two sides
The expand button. Note that tapping this button a second time will return previous the sizing.

Expand: Tap the expand button to resize the Mosaic display to the maximum size. That is the size that uses the maximum height or width with distorting the Mosaic. Tapping the expand button again will return the Mosaic display to its previous size.
Edit colors (color table): The color table shows all of the colors currently used in the Mosaic. Each color shows a count of the number of tiles using that color and the Red, Green, Blue color values for the color.; The color table is also used to merge and edit colors in the Mosaic. See Edit colors below for more help.
Apply palette: Apply palette… is a tool to replace colors of the mosaic with colors from a palette of specific colors. See Apply palette for help with this tool.
Merge colors: Merge colors… is an alternate tool for reducing the number of colors in a Mosaic. See Merge colors below for help using this tool.
Resize: Dragging the resize indicator right or left will resize the color table and Mosaic display.
Mosaic as edited: The Mosaic display shows current colors of the Mosaic. The Mosaic display can also be used to help with the editing process. See Mosaic below for more details.

Apply palette

Apply palette… is a tool to change Mosaic colors to specific colors from a palette. This can be helpful when designing a mosaic that will be constructed of glass, wood, or other materials for which a stock of specific colors exists. The displayed pairs show the proposed palette color (left color), the mosaic tile color (right color) and the number of tiles using this color.

	Merge the selected pair, source to destination (left to right)
	Replace all mosaic colors with the proposed palette colors

A long press on one the proposed pairs will provide a contextual menu as seen below. The numbers are the RGB (red, green, blue) values for the palette and mosaic colors. Tapping the right facing arrow will replace the mosaic color. Tapping the RGB values dismisses the menu. Tapping Edit provides a way to select an alternate color from the palette.

Proposed pairs with contextual menu displayed

When editing a palette, tab will move between all of the fields. Return will also move between fields, but additionally, return will add a new color to the palette when at the bottom of the list of palette colors (equivalent to tapping the + button).

Edit colors

Edit colors… is the default mode for editing a Mosaic. The various tools and options are described below.

Sort Colors

The table of colors can be sorted by occurrence count or by color. Sort by color is the default, but ColorHints Mosaic will remember the setting chosen.

Tap the Sort button and then choose from the By Count | By Color | By Lightness | ↓ pop-up menu. ↓ and ↑ are used to reverse the sorting order.

Undo edits

Tap the

button to undo the last edit. A long press on the undo button will (with confirmation) undo all edits.

Merge 2 most similar colors

Tapping the Merge nearest two colors button

button will merge the two most similar colors together. The color with smaller usage count (source) will be merged into the color with the larger usage count (destination). The last merge indicator ♦ shows the destination color.

A long press on the Merge nearest two colors button

button will pop-up an Ok | Cancel | Reverse menu and preview the source and destination colors about to be merged. The source color is marked with an arrow → while the destination color is marked with diamond ♢. The source color will be merged into the destination color. Or destination to source if Reverse is selected.

Last merge indicator

The merge indicator ♦ marks the last destination color for a merge.

Selected color

Tapping on a color in the table will select the color. The selected color will blink bright green in both the color table and the Mosaic. A selected color can be used in commands from pop-up menus.

Tapping the selected color will de-select the color.

Pop-up menu

Two versions of pop-up menus can occur. The first occurs when a color is selected in the color table and has the following options:
Edit | To selected | From selected

Edit: Edit the color shown in the color table. See Edit Colors Help for details.
To selected: The color pressed to get the pop-up menu will be merged into the selected (blinking) color.
From selected: The selected (blinking) color will be merged into the color pressed to get the pop-up menu.

When no color is selected in the color table, the pop-up menu options are:
Edit | Merge to nearest

Edit: Edit the color shown in the color table. See Edit Colors Help for details.
Merge to nearest: ColorHints Mosaic will locate the most similar color to the one pressed and merge the color pressed into the color found.

Merge two colors

A long press followed by dragging from a color in the color table with show a floating color cell resembling this: Merge two colors image

The left half of the cell is the source color (the color being dragged from) and the right half is the color to merge into. The right half of the cell with change as dragging continues. Occasionally the right half will show hash marks rather than a color. This occurs when the drag is over the source color, or, when the drag is currently not above a valid destination color (typically when the drag touch point is between colors).

Release the drag to complete the color merge. The merge can be aborted by dragging off of the color table. Or, just use the Undo button

if the merge was not what was intended.

Merge colors

Merge colors… provides an alternate tool for merging mosaic colors. Use the tile count controls at the top to limit the number of tiles a color can have. At the bottom are the controls to merge selected pairs or all of the pairs. Pairs can be merged left color into right color or vice-versa.

The list of colors below the tile count controls contains the colors with a tile count equal or less than specified. Proposed merge pairs

The controls at the bottom are used to merge the color pairs found in the list.

	Merge the selected pair, source to destination (left to right)
	Merge the selected pair, destination to source (right to left)
	Merge all pairs in the list, source to destination (left to right)
	Merge all pairs in the list, destination to source (right to left)

Note: the

and

controls may not reduce the color count by the number indicated on the control. This is because during the process of merging colors, a color tile count may be increased by a merge that occurred earlier during the merge all process. This increase may cause the source tile count of another merge pair on the list outside of the specified tile count limit. Or, a prior merge can eliminate a color that was the destination for another merge pair. This can also happen using the merge selected items buttons ( merge selected left to right button

and

) when more that one merge pair is selected.

A long press on one the merge pairs will provide a contextual menu as seen below. The numbers are the RGB (red, green, blue) values for the source and destination colors. Tapping the right or left facing arrow will merge the colors in the direction of the arrow. Tapping the RGB values dismisses the menu.

Merge pairs with contextual menu displayed

Mosaic

The right portion of the color editor displays the Mosaic will any color changes made. While the Mosaic is primarily to see the results of changes, it can also be used to help with edits.

Discard changes: Tap the Cancel button to exit from the Color Editor abandoning any changes made.
Save changes: Tap the Save button to save any changes made in the Color Editor
Edit area: When changes to colors are made, the changes are restricted to tiles completely within the edit area. Normally the edit area is the entire Mosaic. However, edits can be limited to a region of the Mosaic by dragging on the Mosaic to create a limited edit area.; Changes to the colors will not affect the portion of the Mosaic outside the edit area (the area outside the edit area is shaded gray). Tapping in the shaded area will reverse the protected area of the edit. A double tap will return to editing the entire mosaic.; The edit area can be reshaped by dragging one of the four corners to resize and/or reposition the edit area.; Note: the edit area feature is not available when using Merge colors… or Apply palette…
Selecting a color: A long press on the Mosaic display will cause a colored circle to appear. This color changes as the drag gesture continues. When the desired color is shown, release the drag gesture and that color will be selected in the color table and on the Mosaic.
No edits area: When an edit area is defined, the area outside the edit area is shaded gray. A tap in the gray area will reverse the edit area. That is, the grayed area is now inside the rectangle meaning that tiles inside the rectangle are unaffected by any color edits.
Drag to resize: When an edit area exists, the rectangle can be reshaped by dragging the corners. If the drag starts too far from one of the corners, a new edit area is created by the drag gesture.

Tutorials

A three part tutorial titled Editing Mosaic Colors in ColorHints Mosaic is available.

A tutorial is also available describing Using Merge Colors in ColorHints Mosaic

Shortcuts

Tap: On the color table, selects or deselects a color; On the Mosaic display, sets the edit area to the region tapped on (if an edit area is shown)
Drag: Dragging on the Mosaic display creates an edit area
Long press: On the color table, a long press produces a pop-up menu of possible actions; A long press on one of the merge pairs displays a contextual menu similar to 122,53,14 ⮂ 125,50,16 | ⬅ | ➡ . The numbers are the RGB values for the left and right colors. The arrow buttons can be used to merge the colors.; Long press on a proposed pair shows a contextual menu similar to 122,53,14 → 125,50,16 | ➡ | Edit . The right arrow replaces the mosaic color with the proposed palette color. Edit allows a color to be selected from the palette to replace the mosaic color.; Long press on the button will pop-up Ok | Cancel | Reverse and mark the two colors to be merged. Using Reverse causes the merge to be done in the opposite direction.
Long press and drag: On the color table, a long press and drag starts a merge operation - it drags a source color to the color to be merged into; On the Mosaic display, a long press and drag selects a color
Shake: Shake to Undo is equivalent to using the (Undo) button

Support

Send EMail to Swaystairs support

ColorHints Mosaic

Swaystairs Software