The Color Swatches palette (Window > Color Swatches) is a good place to store the colors that you use often in your images. You can select a foreground or background color by clicking a color swatch in the Color Swatches palette. You can add or delete colors to create a custom swatch library, save a library of swatches, and reload them for use in another image. You can change the way thumbnails are displayed in the Color Swatches palette by choosing an option from the More menu.
Although you can add many colors to the Color Swatches palette, you should manage its size and organization to improve performance. Creating libraries can help you group related or special swatches and manage palette size.
The Photoshop Elements/Presets/Color Swatches folder contains the various swatch libraries. When you create custom libraries, saving them to the Color Swatches folder makes them automatically appear in the palette libraries pop‑up menu.
To choose a foreground color, click a color in the palette.
To choose a background color, Command-click a color in the palette.
If there is a color you’d like to use often, you can save the color as a swatch in the Color Swatches palette. Saved swatches are added to the library of colors in the palette. To permanently save your custom swatches, you must save the entire library.
To save a library of swatches, choose Save Swatches from the More menu. To make the set appear in the palette’s swatch libraries pop‑up menu, save the file to the Photoshop Elements\Presets\Color Swatches folder.
To select and load a swatch library, choose Load Swatches from the More menu in the palette.
To replace the current swatch library with a different library, choose Replace Swatches from the More menu in the palette and select a library.
Drag the color swatch to the Trash button in the palette, and click OK to confirm the deletion.
Press Option to change the pointer to a scissors icon, and click a color in the Color Swatches palette.