Important! Make sure you click "Selection." I get email every week from people telling me "Hey man, I tried your GIF thing and it doesn't work. You're holding out on us, man. Whatsupwitdat?" No, I'm not holding out on you. More times than not, this step is where people mess up. So pay attention!

Click "Add". Then "Close." You will now see a display of the exact colors in your selected image. This is your custom palette, the only colors necessary to render your image. Click "OK" at the bottom.

Now you need to see an example of what the finished image is going to look like in your browser. Click the "Color Format" drop down box and select your newly named palette. How's it look? Yucky? Create a new palette with more number of colors. Does it look fine? Try creating another palette with fewer colors. Remember, the fewer colors the better.

Just for fun, click on "Web". Do the results look familiar? This is the palette that most browsers use and this is the result you've been seeing. The "Web" palette simply didn't have the exact colors needed for your image, so the browser created the best match it could.

Optimizing the color palette, as we are doing here, creates a custom palette with only the colors needed to render your image.

Hang on, we're half-way through!