How To: Get Mondrianum Working in Photoshop
If you haven’t heard of Mondrianum yet, it’s a neat little (shareware) plugin for Photoshop (Mac only) that adds Adobe’s Kuler color combinations to the Apple color picker. It doesn’t just work in Photoshop. After installing Mondrainum, it works system-wide with any Mac app that uses the Apple color picker, like iLife, iWork, etc. Granted, most Photoshoppers probably don’t prefer the Apple color picker over Adobe’s, but if you are ever in need of a little color inspiration with the help from Kuler, it can come in handy. I’ll show you how to get it working in Photoshop.
1. Download Mondrianum and install it. (copy the folder to Applications > Photoshop > Plugins)
2. In Photoshop, go to the Preferences > General. (Command + K)
The very first option in this pane is the color picker dropdown menu. Select “Apple” then close preferences. (click OK)
3. Double click on your foreground color to bring up the color picker, and you should now see the Apple color picker instead of the Adobe picker we’re all used to.
Click on the icon at the top on the far right to bring up the Mondrianum panel.
Now to use the panel you can simply click on the swatches at the bottom, or you can export an entire set of swatches to import to any Adobe app. To do this, click on the little arrow to the right of the color combo you like, and choose “Download as Adobe Swatch Exchange file.”
Now the export/download dialogue appears. Just click “Save File” and it will be saved in the same folder that your browser download files to.
To install, find your swatch file in your downloads folder, and move it to the adobe app you want to use it in > Presets > Swatches folder. Done! now you can load the swatches from the swatches panel in your Adobe app.
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…and how is this any different from using the Kuler website? Perhaps in a future version you’ll be able to drag the sets to the swatches area at the bottom of the color picker.
It’s a great tip, but only for those who didn’t already know you can download ASE files from Kuler.
It’s really not different at all, just inside the app instead of in a browser.
[...] Check out Bitt Box’s explanation how to get Mondrianum to work in [...]
does this apply to Illustrator too? How do I do that? I’m novice here, so um… your helping me.
Anything similar for PC?
It’s worth mentioning this is Leopard only.
[...] Ein nützliches Tutorial, wie ihr Mondrianum in Photoshop zum Laufen bringt, gibt es bei Bittbox. [...]
Hey, I use a mac so unfortunately this app doesnt work for me but I didn’t know about that Kuler site so thanks for posting that.
hey grate job anything for PC ???
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When I installed it, it said that it would expire by the end of February :(
This is a great tool for people who always get complicated at the time to make color combinations.Thanks a lot!
edit - it meant to say i dont use a mac…d’oh
thanks a lot for this. Great stuff!
Works great on leopard for me. Handy tool, esp. for when picking a palette is low on my list but it still needs to look good. Also like that I can save it as an option in the color picker instead of downloading and loading in a swatch file in Photoshop - for those really quick and dirty jobs. Much thanks!
When I read this post, I immediately went to Google to search for Kuler combinations. What I found was a post at COLOURlovers.com about how the Adobe Kuler site is in essence a duplication of the COLOURlovers.com concept. The main response seemed to be, “well, they took your idea but they can’t duplicate the community.” Their argument is that COLOURlovers.com has an engaged community whereas Adobe’s Kuler ends up “heartless” for lack of community and involvement. Seeing as how the Mondrianum app merely accesses Kuler swatches from within Photoshop, I think I’ll take the extra step to hitch onto COLOURlovers.com where there is a group of people that can discuss color and patterns, as well as the swatches.
It’s interesting, though, that someone decided to develop the Mondianum app at all. They’re getting the swatches from Kuler without needing to deal with the website. Without any experience of Adobe’s Kuler myself, it makes me wonder if the commenters at COLOURlovers.com have it right — that the Kuler site is buggy and uninspiring.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1044731
(you need Adobe ID). something close to color wheel in pcs
interesting
[...] If you haven’t heard of Mondrianum, well, you need to learn how to pronounce that… This is a great little article detailing how to get it all working for [...]
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So let me get this straight. Download Mondrianum. Install it. Change the default color picker to the apple one (eew!). Find a color scheme I like. Download it (which opens my browser window). Open finder to find the download. Move that file to a Photoshop swatches folder.
Or I could go on kuler, download the color scheme, and then move it.
Uh… Coverflow is nice and all, but I think I’ll stick with convenience first. Love your other posts though!
hi! i tried to use the mondrianum, but i couldnt get any swatches, besides my cs3 is in spanish so translating things isnt easy, anyway do u know why i cant get any colour? is it because of the internet, or the conection, or what could it be happening??
help, thanks!!!!
So let me get this straight. Download Mondrianum. Install it. Change the default color picker to the apple one (eew!).
[...] Jeg har fundet den på bittbox. [...]
wonderfullllll thanks :)
Kuler with Mondrianum are really essential. I just regreat one thing, with the Apple Color panel you can’t see the changement directly in your document when you select an other color.
Great, now what do we have to do to get a Windows version of this? Gfx design should be universal.
-ri
customizegfx.com