Unlimited Customisation of Colours

Tartan Designer introduces the concept of Colour Swatches or pallets.  The default is the Modern Swatch - this consists of around 134 colours as defined by the original Scottish Tartans Society with many additions defined by the Scottish Tartans World Register.  These colours represent the majority of colours used in traditional and modern tartan weaving.  Each colour has a colour 'shorthand' - a one to three letter code.  Some of these codes are obvious - R for red, G for green, LG for light green, etc, and some are quite cryptic with the original reasons for the choice of letters lost in the mists of time.

Tartan Designer allows any colours within the swatch to be changed (from a possible range of 16.7 million) allowing very accurate colour matching to actual thread colours a weaver may employ.  We advise obtaining some sample threads from your proposed weaving mill and spending some time matching the colours (there are some low cost devices available from companies like Pantone to accurately measure colour and give an RGB value and Pantone Number).

The modified swatch can then be saved using a meaningful name and recalled when designing a tartan to be woven by that mill.  If the same colour codes are retained within different swatches it is then possible to view a design as would be woven by different mills (every mill has its own variation of say a standard Red or Green).  Some mills have a quite limited standard range of colours - some as low as sixteen.  A swatch could be created specifically for that mill giving the designer just sixteen colours to choose from.  This ensures that the design will accurately match the output of the mill without introducing colours outwith their standard range (mills will of course create other thread colours on request but at additional cost).

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