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That's not easy to answer. I usually just start out with one color in mind. I like gradients, and I like contrast between lighter and darker colors, or shades of a color. That contrast determines which part of the pattern will stand out.
And I often take combinations of colors that are always good together, like purple and green, or turqoise and red.
It sometimes helps to just take my yarn and pick colors that seem to go well together.

It depends what you want your bracelet to look like but a colour wheel can be really helpful with picking colours. otherwise if you have one colour you really want to work with you can lay other colours next to it to see what looks good. Some people also re-create the pattern with generator and substitute the colours you want to work with to see how it looks, just don't save the pattern as a new pattern, hope that helps :)

oh okay. wow you guys are so helpful. thank you! would be cool if we had a program on this site that allowed you to change the colors on a pattern to see what it looks like beforehand. but i suppose that will cost money. thanks for the tip jazzy5252!

I also find that one of the advantages to winding your string/thread/floss on a bobbin is that you can see the color of the string over an area instead of just as a single string (like swatches of fabric). This is good if you know you want, say, a "green" in your pattern, but you anr not sure which green will work with the other colors. Place the bobbins with the other colors next to each other and then lay a string of the different green strings you have across them to see how they will look in combination.

We already have a tool for that, Ghosttear. I'm always a bit hesitant to give the link, because some users hit the 'save'-button instead of making a screenshot to save the pattern in an other colorscheme. And saving existing patterns is against our TOU.....
But I use it all the time myself and it's very helpful. It's our 'alternative generator' :
https://www.friendship-bracelets.net/js_gen.php?edit=66747
Just substitute the number for the (normal) pattern number of the pattern you like to see in other colors.
And save the pattern in the colors you like by making a screenshot :-)

thank you so much! sorry if i am annoy you. i appreciate all the help. i really do!