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https://github.com/nsfmc/swatch

swatch is a parser for Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) Files
https://github.com/nsfmc/swatch

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swatch is a parser for Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) Files

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README 

        
Swatch

======



swatch is a parser for adobe swatch exchange files



Copyright (c) 2014 Marcos A Ojeda http://generic.cx/



With help from ASE documentation written by

`Carl Camera `_ and

the ase generator written for colourlovers by

`Chris Williams `_



``swatch.write(lst, filename)`` reads in a list, as described below

and outputs a .ase file. (new in v0.4.0)



``swatch.parse(filename)`` reads in an ase file and converts it to a

list of colors and palettes. colors are simple dicts of the form::



    {

        'name': u'color name',

        'type': u'Process',

        'data': {

            'mode': u'RGB',

            'values': [1.0, 1.0, 1.0]

        }

    }



the values provided vary between color mode. For all color modes, the

value is always a list of floats.



RGB: three floats between [0,1]  corresponding to RGB.

CMYK: four floats between [0,1] inclusive, corresponding to CMYK.

Gray: one float between [0,1] with 1 being white, 0 being black.

LAB: three floats. The first L, is ranged from 0,1. Both A and B are

floats ranging from [-128.0,127.0]. I believe illustrator just crops

these to whole values, though.



Palettes (Color Groups in Adobe Parlance) are also dicts, but they have an

attribute named ``swatches`` which contains a list of colors contained within

the palette.::



    {

        'name': u'accent colors',

        'type': u'Color Group',

        'swatches': [

            {color}, {color}, ..., {color}

        ]

    }



Because Adobe Illustrator lets swatches exist either inside and outside

of palettes, the output of swatch.parse is a list that may contain

swatches and palettes, i.e. [ swatch* palette* ]



Here's an example with a light grey swatch followed by a color group containing

three swatches::



    >>> import swatch

    >>> swatch.parse("example.ase")

    [{'data': {'mode': u'Gray', 'values': [0.75]},

      'name': u'Light Grey',

      'type': u'Process'},

     {'name': u'Accent Colors',

      'swatches': [{'data': {'mode': u'CMYK',

         'values': [0.5279774069786072,

          0.24386966228485107,

          1.0,

          0.04303044080734253]},

        'name': u'Green',

        'type': u'Process'},

       {'data': {'mode': u'CMYK',

         'values': [0.6261844635009766,

          0.5890134572982788,

          3.051804378628731e-05,

          3.051804378628731e-05]},

        'name': u'Violet Process Global',

        'type': u'Global'},

       {'data': {'mode': u'LAB', 'values': [0.6000000238418579, -35.0, -5.0]},

        'name': u'Cyan Spot (global)',

        'type': u'Spot'}],

      'type': u'Color Group'}]



Spot, Global and Process

------------------------



Something that's not mentioned in either carl camera's or chris william's code

is the mention of spot, global and process colors.



There are three kinds of swatch types available to you in a ASE files: Process,

Global and Spot. Process colors are standard colors, this is the default if you

define a new color in illustrator. As the name implies, they're mixed from either

RGB or CMYK depending on the document color mode.



Global colors are the same thing as process colors, but they have one neat property

which is that when you update them, they are updated all throughout your artwork.

This makes them something like "color references" and quite useful if you're doing

something like reskinning some extant document.



Spot colors are implicitly global but have the nifty property that you can create

new swatches from them based on "tints" or, effectively some screened value of that

color. The only hitch is that tints, even though they can be part of your file,

can't be stored/exchanged as swatches. I'm on the fence as to how problematic this

is, but that's just how it goes. Even illustrator won't save them out, it's just

not supported in the app (almost certainly due to the nature of the file format)



Caveats

-------



Finally, consider the fact that your swatches can be CMYK a mixed blessing.

While this is invariably useful if you need to import some old swatches for

print work, it will pose a challenge for accurately converting back to RGB/LAB

unless you have a copy of illustrator handy.



If you don't, you can always install color profile calculator in the (oddly

named) `little cms `_ and feed it the freely

available SWOP icc color profile and use the default output of sRGB to get

your colors in a somewhat usable form for the web.



If you end up with LAB spot colors, you can always pay

`Bruce Lindbloom `_ a

visit to get the relatively easy, if somewhat time consuming, LAB->XYZ->RGB

formulas.