Color Table-eliminating colors

I am doing clean up of artwork for a weaving process. The RGB images become Indexed Color Mode. The palette is Local (Adaptive) with as few possible colors. Usually around 25 to 30. Sometimes, after working on the image, those 25-30 colors are really close in value and a few more can be eliminated. This makes it easier to select colors from the weave blanket colors they have to be chosen from.

Is there a way to delete a few colors, one at a time, that are close to other colors that will replace them? When I delete one color in the Color Table (Command click on a color), the image colors get totally messed up. Again, is there a way to delete a color that will be replaced by a similar color which will hardly effect the artwork? Thanks.

Making a selection with the magic wand (tolerance 0, no anti-aliasing, non-contiguous) and then painting in the desired colour may work

I did figure out how to do this in the Color Table. The active palette needs to be Custom, then colors can be deleted (using Command click on a color) without affecting all others. Now I need to figure out how to rearrange colors (see more recent topic entitled: Color Table (when in Indexed Color Mode).