In an aspect of the disclosure, a method, a computer-readable medium, and an apparatus for assigning feature colors for a multiple patterning process are provided. The apparatus receives integrated circuit layout information including a set of features and an assigned color of a plurality of colors for each feature of a first subset of features of the set of features. In addition, the apparatus performs color decomposition on a second subset of features to assign colors to features in the second subset of features. The second subset of features includes features in the set of features that are not included in the first subset of features with an assigned color.