Displaying composite raster in colors other than RGB in ArcMap?

Band Swapping: This is the simplest trick in the book, but it can make a HUGE difference. Basically, you’re just re-wiring which band controls which color. Want Band 1 to show up as blue instead of red? No problem! Maybe Band 2 would look better as brown, and Band 3 as green? Go for it! This is awesome for highlighting specific spectral signatures in your imagery. I remember one time I was working with some satellite imagery of farmland, and by tweaking the band combination, I could instantly see which fields were the healthiest. To do this, in the Layer Properties, head to the Symbology tab and pick “RGB Composite.” You’ll see where you can manually assign each band to a Red, Green, or Blue channel. Easy peasy.

Color Maps: Painting by Numbers (But Way Cooler): Think of color maps as associating specific colors with specific data values. This is perfect for single-band rasters or when you’ve got distinct categories in your data. Imagine a land cover map where “forest” is green, “water” is blue, and “urban” is gray. ArcMap lets you create and import these color map files (.clr) to bring your vision to life. You can whip up a .clr file straight from the Raster Properties dialog box. To use them, jump to the Symbology tab and choose either “Unique Values” or “Classified.”

Stretched Renderer + Color Ramps: Smooth Gradients for the Win: For those continuous raster datasets – things like elevation or temperature – the “Stretched” renderer and color ramps are your best friends. Color ramps are basically gradients of colors that smoothly transition across your data’s range. ArcMap comes loaded with some built-in ramps, but the real fun starts when you create your own using the Style Manager. I’ve spent hours tweaking color ramps to get just the right look for elevation maps. It’s addictive! To get started, in the Symbology tab, select “Stretched.” Then, pick a color ramp from the dropdown or right-click the ramp and hit “Properties” to customize it.

Raster Attribute Tables: Data-Driven Colors: Now, if your raster has a value attribute table attached, you can actually use the data in that table to drive your colors. It’s like saying, “Hey ArcMap, color these pixels based on the values in this column!” This is super powerful for thematic mapping. In the Symbology tab, click either “Unique Values” or “Classified,” then use the “Value Field” dropdown to pick the column you want to use.