Selecting a colour swatch on Inspirations does not narrow the results in front of you. It starts a different search. Colour is read before anything else on the page, and a colour search accepts two things only: the colour, and the content type. Your typed words, your selected tags and your Source ticks are set aside for as long as a colour is selected.
Nothing is lost. Clear the colour and the page goes back to the search you had.
A colour search ranks the whole library instead of filtering it
Every indexed image carries a reading of its overall colour. Choosing a swatch orders all of them by how close they sit to the colour you picked, closest first. There is no cut-off, so the further you scroll the further the colour drifts from the one you chose. The images near the top are the answer, and the ones several screens down are simply what is left.
The twelve swatches are the only colours you can search. There is no colour picker and no way to type a colour in.
Content Type is the one thing that travels with a colour
Content Type keeps working while a colour is selected. Red with Sections is a genuinely different set from red on its own, and pairing the two is the most reliable way to make a colour search specific.
Sort does not work while a colour is selected. The order is colour distance, and Magic, Latest and Oldest have no effect on it. Colour results also arrive 50 at a time rather than 20, so the page runs longer before it asks for more.
Some colour results will not open
Selecting an image normally opens the work it came from in a new tab. A colour result can only do that when the image's origin was recorded at the time it was indexed, and for a large part of the library it was not. Those images carry no link, and selecting one does nothing at all.
If that keeps happening, search the subject in words instead. Word searches work the origin out by a second route and reach the source far more often.
Getting your search back
- Remove the colour chip above the results. Your words, tags and sources are still held, and the page re-runs them as they were.
- Select the same swatch again in the filter window. Choosing a colour that is already chosen clears it.
- Edit the address. The colour is written into the page address as
color. Delete that part and reload.
Because the colour sits in the address, a colour search is worth bookmarking or sending on. It reopens exactly as you left it.
Why a colour can return less than you expect
Profile pictures and organization logos are kept out of Inspirations altogether, and any image a member has flagged is removed for everyone. A colour search is therefore reading a slightly smaller set than the whole library, and a narrow content type on top of a colour can empty the page.