End of support for Adobe Color Themes panel

[Hep Svadja]

On July 14, 2021 the Adobe Color themes panel will be disabled in Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, and After Effects. This is unfortunately a ramification of a technical limitation the panel faces. We will be bringing the creative tools back into applications by integrating them in the Libraries panel in the future. Please see this support document for full details. 

End of support

End of support means that Adobe no longer provides technical support, including product and/or security updates, for all derivatives of a product or product version (localized versions, minor upgrades, operating systems, dot and double-dot releases, and connector products).

Alternative Solutions 

Create 

Create using color harmony rules by visiting Adobe Color on the web. You can find other color creation tools to extract harmonized themes and gradients from images, or check themes for visual accessibility. Save themes to your libraries to automatically sync them with your apps.

Explore 

Explore  thousands of public themes from the Adobe Color community that you can add to your libraries. Or browse curated galleries of Trends in different creative industries

My Themes

Themes you save to  your libraries on the web will automatically be synced to your desktop applications. Find your saved themes in the Libraries panel in Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, and After Effects. Apply colors by clicking the swatch in a theme, or by right clicking and selecting "Add to swatches" in the menu. 

Additional Resources 

• Adobe Color FAQ 
• Adobe Color accessibility tools  
• Creative Cloud Libraries 
• Creative Cloud Libraries in Photoshop 
• Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
• Color groups (harmonies) in Illustrator  
• Creative Cloud libraries in InDesign 
• Creative Cloud Libraries in After Effects

[rob day]

This is unfortunately a ramification of a technical limitation the panel faces

Is the technical limitation related to color management? Seems like the Adobe Color CMYK problem should be addressed—at least add a disclaimer that the theme CMYK values are not color managed conversions.

[PixbyTed]

. We will be bringing the creative tools back into applications by integrating them in the Libraries panel in the future. Please see this support document for full details. 

So it seems this means Adobe is removing a feature before it has a viable replacement? Integrating these things from the community has been problematic. For example Pantone connect fails regularly. I even need to use a third party extension manager, since the Adobe one doesn't work.The Library panel is broken completely.

So to add to my disappointment, Adobe's comment "We will be bringing the creative tools back into applications..." is sadly lacking. When??? It should be the same day the color themes panel is removed.

Again, the value of my subscription has been reduced!

[Landon5EF4]

Adobe Color Themes is something I use in almost every document I create in Illustrator. Removing this tool absolutely reduces the value of the product. It seems that Adobe has no timeframe to add this feature back into the software. How long will this take? 4 weeks? 4 months? Most likely they will never add it and hope that we forget it was ever a feature. I am a new customer to Adobe and I can't say that I am overly happy with their (lack of) awareness for the needs of their customers. Typical corporate monopoly in the industry.

[rob day]

Hi @Landon5EF4 , If you work exclusively in AI, and are always using the default sRGB & US SWOP working profiles, you might not have noticed the color management problems with the different applications’ Color Theme panels.

In the application panels there is no way to spec a working color space for a theme —with the online version there is the option to spec Lab, which can be color managed. In an Illustrator CMYK document, the themes get added to the Swatches panel as CMYK, but they don’t necessarily match the chosen colors panel colors—for example this theme doesn’t match at all even though the colors are mostly in the CMYK gamut:

Also, if you save and use the AI generated theme in the other apps, or reference it at color.adobe.com it is coverted to sRGB. I assume these are what @Hep Svadja means by technical limitations.

If you are into color accuracy, the Create tool at color.adobe.com can be color managed by creating all your themes in the Lab color mode. Saved Lab themes also sync to the CC Libraries panels, and from there you can move themes to the Swatches panels and make color managed conversions from the device independent Lab space into any CMYK or RGB space, which maintains the color appearance of in gamut color while converting to the correct output values.

[Hep Svadja]

Hello: 

If you are working in Illustrator you have access to all of the tools, including working with Color Harmonies, via other panels. For more about working with the Illustrator native color harmony tools you can see this Helpx article: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/color-groups-harmonies.html

[BTS Photo]

Sunsetting the the panels integration before a replacement goes beta or GR is real negative in the photographer/retoucher community as it's heavily used in many professional workflows regarding color grading and balancing. 
Is there timeline till the new libraries integration becomes available? 

[rob day]

The workaround would be to create themes at color.adobe.com and save them to a library—saved themes are still added to the app’s CC Libraries panels in the chosen color space. The site offers a CMYK option, but the values are not color managed and are wrong. The Lab option can be CM’d inside of the apps.

Unless you were willing to work exclusively in the sRGB space, creating themes directly from the Adobe Color Themes panel was always a problem.

[papermoustache]

What about the palettes I liked? 
I can find my own palettes, but not the ones I previously could find inside the "my appreciation" panel

[papermoustache]

Found them. A little bit hidden, but still there (phew)

[leonhermfelt]

Please bring the Color Themes back. You are destroying my workflow.

[Margaret Anne Black]

I agree with others - PLEASE return the Color Themes to the Photoshop workspace.

I did try the web solution but it doesnt work very well for me- it is very difficult to get the lighter color version of colors.

It was really simple when it was in the program itself - plus a lot more accurate.

[rob day]

plus a lot more accurate

Hi @Margaret Anne Black If you want color output accuracy make sure you set the Color Mode to Lab before saving the theme to your CC Library. The Lab mode was not an option in the Theme panel—the panel’s source color forced you to work in the sRGB space. Lab gives you the option to make accurate color managed conversions into any color space in Photoshop, which was not possible when the source space was sRGB. You can also manipulate the lightness of the color(s) via the L sliders:

[Margaret Anne Black]

Oh, thank you for pointing this out.

Today was the first time i went online to try out the online option.  I certainly did not notice the LAB option in the bottom left.  I will save in Lab the next time.

The colors did save to my library, so i guess having to go online is workable though inconvenient for me. 
Thanks again for your help. 

[defaulthy92okdwgwv1]

O Adobe Color Temas faz parte do fluxo de trabalho. Tem previsão de retorno? Grato!

[warpigs666]

Whoever made this decision should be fired 

[khayalconsultants]

So haphazard. Removing it before replacement is developed is careless for all of us who depended on it, even if it wasn't perfect. 

[NKD999]

What about the confidentiality ? I'm absolutely not confortable to upload image on web - I signed a NDA .... so what is the solution ? 

[Bob_Hallam]

If you have images that you wish to use try posterizing them first in Photoshop.  Then upload them.  This will not violate your NDA so long as they are unrecogniseable.

[SamanthaPayne]

Unfortunately, this is a tool that I use when building proposals for clients and now it's trash and can't be used. I guess I'll go in search of another option. Maybe an Adobe competitor will provide something that is useable and accesible by their users ... oh, and supported. 

[rob day]

Hi @SamanthaPayne , Saved Adobe Color Themes are now sync’d to your CCLibraries panels: