USING THE COLOR PICKER

The key to using color in Photoshop is in understanding how the Color Picker works and what is meant by Foreground and Background color.

Color controls are located at the bottom of the toolbox:

FOREGROUND COLOR BOX: Click here to bring up the COLOR PICKER dialog box to select or change the FOREGROUND COLOR.

BACKGROUND COLOR BOX: Click here to bring up the COLOR PICKER dialog box to select or change the BACKGROUND COLOR.

DEFAULT COLORS: Click here to change the FOREGROUND COLOR to black and the BACKGROUND COLOR to white.

SWITCH COLORS: Click here to switch the FOREGROUND and BACKGROUND COLORS.

When you use the AIRBRUSH, PAINTBRUSH, PENCIL or TYPE tool, you always apply the FOREGROUND COLOR.

You can also apply the FOREGROUND COLOR to a selected area by choosing FILL from the EDIT MENU, or by using the shortcut OPTION DELETE (Mac) or ALT DELETE (Windows).

When you use the ERASER tool, you actually do not erase at all—you apply the BACKGROUND COLOR. In addition, when you move part of your image using the MOVE TOOL, the empty space that remains is filled with the BACKGROUND COLOR. You can also apply the BACKGROUND COLOR to a selected area by pressing the DELETE key.

So what does all this mean for you?

Simply put, in order to paint or fill an area with a color other than black (the default), you have to change the FOREGROUND COLOR. To do this, you just click once on the FOREGROUND COLOR BOX in the toolbox.

The following dialog box, which is called the COLOR PICKER, will appear:

You can use the COLOR SLIDER to home in on a particular color range. Just slide the little triangles up and down. The range of variations for the color will appear in the COLOR FIELD.

Click once with the mouse button inside the COLOR FIELD. Notice that the CURRENT COLOR box changes. If you click OK, the CURRENT COLOR will become your FOREGROUND COLOR. The PREVIOUS COLOR is the color of your FOREGROUND COLOR before you clicked on the FOREGROUND COLOR BOX in the toolbox (which brought up this dialog box).

If you want a specific HSB, RGB, LAB, CMYK or WEB COLOR, you can enter the values on the right side of the color picker dialog box. For instance, if you want to use a particular Pantone color, enter its CMYK values. It much easier, however, to just click on the CUSTOM button and select your Pantone color from the dialog box that appears.

Once you have selected a FOREGROUND COLOR, click OK. Look at the toolbox. The color you have selected now appears in the FOREGROUND COLOR BOX. I picked an icky red color:

You change or select a BACKGROUND COLOR in the same fashion: click once on the BACKGROUND COLOR BOX in the toolbox, and follow the same steps as you did when choosing a FOREGROUND COLOR.

When the EYEDROPPER TOOL is selected in the toolbox, you can choose an existing FOREGROUND COLOR from your image by simply clicking on the color you want

Hold down the OPTION key (Mac) or ALT key (Windows) when you use the EYEDROPPER TOOL to select a new BACKGROUND COLOR.

You can also change FOREGROUND or BACKGROUND colors in the COLOR PALETTE (if the COLOR PALETTE isn’t visible, go to the WINDOW MENU and scroll down to SHOW COLOR):

Clicking on the FOREGROUND or BACKGROUND COLOR BOX in the COLOR PALETTE will bring up the COLOR PICKER DIALOG BOX just like when you click on the FOREGROUND or BACKGROUND COLOR BOX in the toolbox.

For a PDF of this tutorial, click here.