Apparently for some, the tutorials here are not clear enough and skip too many steps, OR are using an older version of SimPE. So here is a tutorial I ended up writing for someone. They had read other tutorials and failed, while they managed to color something with mine, so this tutorial has been tested by someone who has yet to recolor something.
And hey, the more tutorials the better, in my opionion. That way, people have a greater chance of finding one that they understand.

This is only a rough version, and I think I will continue to update and flesh it out. I want it to be clear as possible.

Update #1: Added STEPs.



STEP 0

Install SimPE! (You may need help with other tutorials for this part.)

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STEP 1

Okay, so once SimPE is opened up, you want to go up to the menu at the top left corner~

And click on "Window". Here, you can open up the appropriate tools.
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STEP 2

This will make a nice drop-box.

Now see how the icons for "Resource List", "Resource Tree", "Plugin View", and "Object Workshop" have blue boxes highlighting them? That's whay you want yours to be. I don't recall what SimPE starts with, so simply toggle them on or off as needed. You can even see tabs for them at the bottom left, and at a box on the right.
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STEP 3


Once you have the pictured tabs, go click on Object Workshop.
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STEP 4


Something very similar to this should pop up, minus the part I crossed out in purple. It serves an important purpose, but you must do something with your settings to get it to show up. It is needed to color build objects. Anyways, click on Start. Nothing will show up right away, so don't be alarmed. It just has to take a moment to load.
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STEP 5


Something like this will show up, and you will have this nice list show up, as circled. These are very broad terms, and you have to click on the + in the box on the left in order to get it to show more detailed options. Sooner or later, we'll find the object we want to recolor.
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STEP 6

As you can see, this brought more options, similar to how it works in the actual game. Let's do something fairly simple, like Sofas.

Let's click on Seating and find something good, shall we?
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STEP 7

Select it, and finally we see some objects

Select it, and finally we see some objects. Let's recolor the "Coming Up Roses" Loveseat (now I have that broadway song stuck in my head). Click on it, and the name and numbers after it will become highlighted.
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STEP 8


We want to choose Next. It is named well, as it will take us to the next step.
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STEP 9


Your screen should look something like the above. First, make sure that what I have circled in green says Recolor, and not Clone. If you need to, bring up the drop box with the arrow and change it to Recolor. Then click Start.
In order to create the package, you need to save it and give it a name. I suggest that you create a New Folder and place it somewhere you will be able to find it later, like your desktop. The file also needs to have a good name that will tell you exactly what it is.
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STEP 10

Once you get it named and saved, SimPE will load a popup box called Subset Selection, where you select your subset.

Well, what on earth is a subset? Um, it's a bit hard to explain, but it is the texture you are starting with. Sometimes, objects will have multiple subsets, each containing default textures to choose from. Beds for example, contain two sections in that box, one containing the bedspread, and the other containing the frame. However, I decided upon this couch due to the simplicity of this part.
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STEP 11


I scrolled down, using the scroll bar that I circled, and found this nice pink color that the game came with. I think I will start with this one.
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STEP 12


As you can see, it is now blue, as it is now selected/highlighted, due to the fact that I clicked on it. So then click Okay on the bottom right corner of the popup. Give SimPE a moment to load the textures.
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STEP 13


Once you've done that, the Resource Tree (in the red box) will now have stuff in it. Yay, stuff! If the tree isn't there in the first place, whatever. That thing is the least important tool anyways.
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STEP 14

Sweet, we are done with the Object Workshop. Go back down to the tabs at the bottom left and click on List. We only need this one for a moment though.

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STEP 15

Here we have the List. This contains the various parts we can edit

For this tutorial, we only want the txtr, AKA, the texture. That's the thing we recolor that will eventually get us our sofa. I clicked on it and thus highlighted it. There are a couple ways to recognize it. Firstly, it has txtr at the end. Secondly, it says TXTR under Type. Third, there's this little rectangle with green stuff in it, shown unhighlighted for your benefit in the red triangle below. Now that you have (hopefully) clicked on it, you can go back down to the tabs at the bottom left. For the next step, we need Plugin View. It is right by List and Object Workshop, so in theory, you won't have any trouble finding it.
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STEP 16


Upon clicking on it, we are taken to something entirely different! Check it out-the texture we chose for Subset Selection is now large and in charge. To edit it, click on Export, which I have circled in red. This lets us take it and put it in your favorite graphics editing program. It is doing exactly what is says-exporting it to other places in the computer. After you click on Export, you will again be directed to save it. Give it a nice name, perhaps one related to the package name.
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STEP 17

This is when you open it up in your editing program (using the file you just now saved) and make your adjustments.
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STEP 18

When you are done making changes to the image and you've saved it-no changing the name or file type-it is time to "Import" (right next to Export) it back into SimPE. This is why you put is somewhere special. Otherwise you may have trouble finding it again.

I did a simple recolor, using Photoshop to turn it orange, as shown here. Almost done!

[Note:Unfortunately, if I were to put it into my game now, it would only be orange some of the time, and you'd have a color changing couch. This is because we only colored the largest picture. The way the game works is that it uses smaller pictures for when you are further away (that's that stuff over on the left). Luckily, SimPE can make little ones for us. Yipee!]
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STEP 19

Right-click on your image.

This makes a nice little drop-box show up. We need to click on Build DXT.
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STEP 20


And now we have another pop-up! Apparently, you need to change the thing that says Smoothen, to None. I don't know why, that's just what we're to do.
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STEP 21

Now we need to "Open" the image up again, getting it from the same place you did before.

See? Once we've loaded the image in, we can see it there!

Now you click on Build.
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STEP 22

Lastly, we have to do the two steps that will save our package. The first is clicking on Commit.

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STEP 23

You must then go up to File, and choose Save.

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Then all you have to do is open up the folder I had you make earlier, and copy&paste it into your Downloads folder, similar to what you would do when downloading cc.

Congrats! Now open up your game and see how it looks!




If you have any questions, please ask.

Is this available in word of pdf?

Erm, no. Should it be?

I get all the way to step 19 and when I right click, the Build DXT option is greyed out and un-selectable. Any idea why that might be or how I can fix it? Thanks!

Perhaps you are recoloring an odd object? Which item are you coloring?
My other theory is that you do not have the most recent (final) version of SimPE.

You need to install the dds utilites as outlined in this tutorial by Numenor. http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=102356

Ah, yes, step 0.

I have recolored the sims in game expression inc. easel, but whenever I import it in the game, the game just won't see the recolor.
Doesn't matter wether I import my own recolor or a recolor I download, does anyone know what to do about this?

Do you have the CEP? That's what enables object recolors.

Moreth. If you can't see anyone's recolors, did you enable CC content for your game? You'll see the check mark option when you load the game.

Okay, so I know this hasn't had any activity for quite some time but, what happens if the object you want to recolour has two subsets but only one of those is recolourable?
I'm actually wanting to create a conversion for TS4 and so I need the textures.
I'm trying to use the Clothes Horse Clothing Rack. SimPE shows me all of the textures for the clothing but the frame texture isn't there! Does anyone know how I could get hold of it?