Support

How do I build a palette by hand?

1. Open Pick. Drag around the wheel to choose a hue, move inward for less saturation, and use Brightness for a lighter or darker value.
2. Tap Add to Palette to keep the selected color. Moving the wheel alone does not add or replace a palette swatch.
3. Add 2–10 colors. Drag swatches sideways to reorder; swipe a swatch up or down to remove it. Tapping a swatch loads it into the picker without editing it.
4. Enter an optional name and tap Save Palette. The saved palette’s detail view opens so you can edit, export, or preview it.

To change a color already in your palette, open Color Lab, choose the swatch and Selected, make your adjustment, and tap Apply Changes. Save the palette when you’re finished.

How do color harmonies work?

In Palettes, choose Explore Color Harmonies, or open a saved palette and choose Explore Harmonies. Select a source color and a harmony; swipe across the harmony choices to see more. Drag the wheel to explore colors and use Brightness separately.

The wheel uses traditional artistic, RYB-style relationships, not opposite RGB/HSV hues: yellow pairs with violet, green with red, and blue with orange. A yellow triad is yellow, blue, and red. Monochromatic has one wheel marker and five tonal variations of the same hue.

Tap Fine-tune Palette for individual adjustments, or Save Palette to keep the result directly. Fine-tuning can intentionally move colors away from a strict harmony. Harmony is a starting point for a design, not a guarantee of readable text contrast or a particular printed result.

How do I use Color Lab?

Open Color Lab from Pick, Fine-tune Palette in Harmonies, or Edit on a saved palette. Choose Selected to adjust one swatch or Whole palette to adjust the set together.

Use Adjust for hue, lightness, and chroma; Warmth for temperature changes; or RGB, HSB, and CMYK for channel controls. Whole-palette channel controls shift the colors together rather than replacing every swatch with the same color. Colors near a channel’s limits can respond differently.

Values edits only the selected swatch, even if you were using Whole palette. CMYK values are approximate and do not simulate a printer’s ink or paper profile. Randomize offers another way to experiment.

Undo, Redo, and Reset help you compare changes. Apply Changes returns the adjusted colors without adding any. Cancel lets you discard your edits. Applying changes is separate from saving the palette.

How do I import a photo?

Open the Photos tab, tap Import Photos (the photo-plus button), and choose one or more images from Apple’s photo picker. Color Factory creates a local copy for the imported-photo library and extracts a palette on-device. To use a new camera shot, take it in Camera first, then import it here.

Open an imported photo to rename it, change its palette size, copy a swatch’s HEX code, or tap Save Palette. You can search, sort, and favorite imported photos. If the photo is still downloading from iCloud, importing it may need an internet connection.

What palette sizes are supported?

Photo extraction supports 2 through 10 colors. You can choose the default size in Settings and change the size on an imported photo’s detail screen. A photo may yield fewer distinct colors if its image does not contain enough readable color variation.

Can I import colors from text?

Yes. Tap the Import Palette button in Palettes, choose the matching format, and paste your values. Supported notation includes HEX, RGB/RGBA, HSB/HSV, HSL, and CMYK. Use one color per line; simple HEX values may also be comma-separated. Review the colors before saving.

To export, open a saved palette and tap Export. Choose HEX, RGB, HSB, HSL, or approximate CMYK, then Copy or Export Text to save a .txt file. Import accepts color values, not full JSON or CSS documents. ASE and JSON file export are not supported.

How do I preview and share artwork?

Open a saved palette and tap Preview in Art Scene. Choose Minimalist Poster, Modern Interior, Mountain Sunset, Botanical Floral, or Crystal Prism. Tap a layer in the artwork or its name under Artwork Elements, then choose the palette color to assign to it.

Shuffle tries another arrangement; Reset returns to the scene’s default assignments. Share Art opens the system share sheet with an image of your artwork. These previews do not change your saved palette, and scene assignments are not saved when you leave the visualizer.

What does the lifetime purchase include?

Free: up to 5 saved palettes, photo extraction, Color Lab, Art Scene previews and image sharing, and color-text import/export. Complementary, Analogous, and Monochromatic harmonies are included.

Lifetime Access: unlimited saved palettes and six more harmonies—Triadic, Split complementary, Square, Accented analogous, Rectangle, and Double split complementary. It is an optional one-time purchase, not a subscription. The app displays your local App Store price before purchase.

At the free limit, you can delete an existing saved palette to make room or unlock Lifetime. Your existing palettes remain available. Cancelling Apple’s purchase confirmation does not unlock paid features; a pending purchase unlocks after Apple confirms it.

How do I restore my purchase?

In Settings, tap Restore Purchases, or choose Restore Purchase in the purchase window. Use the Apple Account that made the purchase and an internet connection so Apple can verify it. Color Factory does not receive your payment-card information.

If the offer is unavailable, try again when you’re online. If access is still missing, email support with the error message, but do not send payment details. Restoring Lifetime Access restores the purchase, not your photos or palettes.

Where is my collection stored?

Imported photos, saved palettes, and preferences are stored locally on this device. There is no Color Factory account or in-app cloud sync, so a purchase on another device does not copy your collection there.

Export important palettes as text before deleting the app or moving devices. You can import those color values again, but a text export is not a full backup of photos, palette history, or scene assignments. Device backups are managed separately by Apple and your device settings.

How do I delete my data?

Delete an imported photo from the Photos tab to remove its local image and extracted colors. Delete saved palettes from the Palettes tab. To remove all local Color Factory data, delete the app from your device. Purchases can still be restored through Apple.

Deleting an imported copy does not delete the original from Apple Photos. Export anything you want to keep before deleting the app; restoring a purchase will not recover deleted app data.

Can I replay the tutorial?

Open Settings and tap How to Use Color Factory. You can skip or close the tutorial at any time. Choosing a starting tone opens Color Harmonies and replaces your current Pick draft with that one color. Choose Continue Without a Tone to leave your draft unchanged.