The Color menu contains commands for selecting the colors used by tools for drawing and
the color structures of the image.
Foreground Color
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to select the foreground color. This is the color used by most
tools when drawing.
Background/Fill Color
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to select the background color. This is used by tools as a secondary
color – for example, the shape tools use it to fill the interior of a shape.
You can also utilize the background color as a general secondary color by using the
right mouse button with any drawing tool; this allows you to quickly switch between
two colors of your choice.
Transparent Background Color
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to select the color used for displaying transparent regions of the image.
When editing an image that contains transparency, the transparent regions are normally
rendered as having a gray checkered background. This may not accurately represent the
transparency in real-world use. You may select any color of your choice to display as
the transparent background instead.
To clear the transparent background color, simply select a color with any level of
transparency in the Color Picker.
Swatch Palette
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to select the set of colors used in the palette on the sidebar.
Color Cycling
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to set an automatic color cycling mode, which automatically goes
through the colors in the swatch palette as you draw. You can
choose one of three options:
No Cycling (Pick)
Uses the manually chosen color as the foreground color.
Sequential (Gradient)
Uses the colors in the palette in sequence, starting from the first color.
You can customize the behavior when the end of the palette is reached by choosing
one of the repeat modes from the dropdown on the sidebar – None will simply
keep using the last color in the palette, Linear will start over from the
beginning of the palette, and Wave will go backwards until it reaches the first
color.
Random
Chooses colors from the palette at random.
Color Mode
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Specifies the color editing mode in the image. The following options are available:
ARGB Color
Allows the use of any color in the image, including semitransparency.
RGB Color
Allows the use of any opaque color in the image.
Indexed
Restricts the usable colors to those found in the image's indexed palette.
When switching to this mode from a true-color mode, a palette of 256 colors will be
generated.
Grayscale
Restricts the usable colors to shades of gray only.
Monochrome
Restricts the usable colors to only black and white.
By Feature
Chooses the optimal mode based on features you request, such as transparency and size.
Indexed Palette
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to view and edit the image's internal palette. This only applies to images
being edited in Indexed mode. This has absolutely no relation to the color swatch
palette on the sidebar.
Palette from Image
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Generates a swatch palette based on the unique colors in the image. This does not
affect the indexed palette (or lack thereof).
Count Colors
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Counts the number of unique colors currently in the image, regardless of color mode.
Invert Colors
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Inverts the colors in the image using basic RGB inversion – white becomes black,
red becomes cyan, green becomes magenta, and blue becomes yellow.
More sophisticated inversion methods are available in the Filter menu.
Pick Channels
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to discard channels in the image or selection. The following channels
are available:
Red, Green, Blue
These are the basic color channels used by the RGB color system.
Alpha
This channel specifies the transparency of the image. Removing it will
make the entire image opaque.
Mask
Applicable to the selection only, this specifies a mask for nonrectangular
selections, such as those made using the Freeform Select tool or by rotating a
rectangular selection. Removing it will revert the selection to rectangular
mode, but note that there are no guarantees as to the usability of image data
outside of the mask.
Swap Alpha and Mask
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Swaps the Alpha and Mask channels of the selection. This allows you to
intentionally create semitransparent regions of the mask for effects such as soft edges
using normal alpha-channel filters.
Make Opaque
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Composites the image over the current background color, removing any transparent
regions in the process. (This is different from
simply removing the alpha channel using the Pick Channels dialog.)
Color Matrix
Keyboard Shortcut: None
Allows you to apply a 5x5 matrix transformation to the color data in your image.
You may choose from predefined matrices or create your own.
A reference for color matrices is outside the scope of this document.
Name
Keyboard Shortcut: None
See also:
Home
Table of Contents