D I 3 Using the Colour Palette in Paint Shop Pro

D I 3 Using the Colour Palette in Paint Shop Pro

Read the following tutorial do the assignment and place the answers and ensuing artwork in my drop box.

The Color Palette

The new Color Palette in Paint Shop Pro 7 is easily the most confusing part of the new program to people upgrading from versions 5 and 6. But, believe me, once you get used to how it works, you will see that the new Color Palette has a lot more power than the old one. Gradients, Patterns and Textures are now controlled through the Color Palette rather than through each individual tool.

First, let's take a tour of the Color Palette.

1. Foreground/Background Colors - The color swatch on the left represents the Foreground color and the color swatch on the right represents the Background color. To set the Foreground color, left click on a color in your graphic or on the Color Picker (2).

2. Available Colors - This portion of the Color Palette represents the totality of the colors you have set under Color Depth. The graphic on the left demonstrates 16 million colors, the middle 256 colors and the right 16 colors.

3. Styles - Styles represent Solid Color, Gradient, Pattern and None. You chose the style by clicking on the right arrow symbol on the Palette, or, simply hold the left mouse button down when you are on the styles window (don't click, just hold the left mouse button down for a few seconds). This will pop out the picker as illustrated in the following graphic.

The top Style swatch represents the Foreground color, a gradient, a pattern or none, and will become the "Stroke" (the outline) for the Text Tool and the Preset Shapes tool. The width for the stroke will be set in the individual Tool Options box. When using one of the Paint Tools, the top swatch will be active through using the left mouse button and when you use the tool, the color, pattern or gradient set will be the stroke or fill applied by the paint tool.

The bottom Style swatch represents the Background color, a gradient, a pattern or none, and will be the "Fill" for the the Text Tool and the Preset Shapes tool. When using one of the Paint Tools, the bottom swatch will be active through using the right mouse button and when you use the tool, the color, pattern or gradient set will be the stroke or fill applied by the paint tool.

The following graphic demonstrates a circle and text set to a black stroke of 5 with a pattern fill.

Color - If you choose color from the pop-out picker, you can set the color by clicking on a color somewhere in the color palette. You can also pick a color from an open graphic by holding down the Ctrl key (this turns the cursor into the Eye Dropper tool) and then left-click on an image to set the Foreground color or right-click on an image to set the Background color.

Gradient - If you choose Gradient from the pop-out picker, then click in the middle of the Style swatch, the Gradient Options box will appear.

o To edit a gradient, click on the Edit button.

o Activate the Invert Gradient box if you wish to invert the gradient.

o Choose the Horizontal, Vertical, Angle and Repeats for the gradient. When you set these defaults, the sample gradient will represent your choices. A Linear gradient can only have the angle and repeats set. For the remaining gradients, you can set the Horizontal and Vertical axis by either entering a number ini the boxes or by grabbing the cross-hair in the middle of the view window and dragging it.

o Choose a style for your gradient. The styles are, from top to bottom: Linear, Rectangular, Sunburst and Radial.

o Edit Paths - Click on this button to change the paths to your gradient folders on the fly.

Pattern - If you choose Pattern from the pop-out picker, then click on the Styles swatch, the Pattern Options box will appear.

o Click on the down arrow or on the sample pattern to activate the selection box.

o Set the scale for the pattern. Most seamless tile patterns are best left set to 100%.

o Set the angle by entering a number in the box or by dragging the dial hand with the mouse.

o Edit Paths - Click on this button to change the paths to your pattern folders on the fly.

The Pattern Options selections will be all the patterns in your Pattern folder and any graphics currently open on your desktop. The currently open graphics will be at the top of the select list.

You can add your own patterns to the choices by converting pattern graphics to a .bmp and placing the converted graphic in the "Pattern" folder where you installed Paint Shop Pro. None - If you choose None, the Style will be deactivated.

4. Textures - Setting a texture in the top swatch will apply the texture to the foreground color, gradient or pattern and the bottom swatch will apply the texture to the background color, gradient or pattern.

You can add your own textures to the choices by converting a texture graphic to a .bmp and placing the converted graphic in the "textures" folder where you installed Paint Shop Pro.

5. Lock - If you have the lock unchecked, the currently selected Styles and Textures will be saved with the tool. For example, you have a red Foreground color, a Black background color and a texture set on the background for the Paint Brush tool. The next time you open the Paint Brush tool, Paint Shop Pro will set the Styles and Textures to the same settings. With the Lock checked, the program will retain the last settings for the Styles and Textures, no matter what tool you use. I recommend you leave the Lock checked until you become more familiar with the Color Palette. It can be quite frustrating to find just the right shade of blue, then switch to the paint tool and have your blue turn to red!

6. Preview - This part of the Color Palette will exhibit the values of a color and sample the color when you use the Eye Dropper tool to pick a color from a graphic or from the Available Colors window. You can set the preview to either RGB (Red/Green/Blue) or HSL (Hue/Saturation/Lightness) in the General Program Preferences (See my Configuring Paint Shop Pro tutorial). The graphic below illustrates the HSL Preview panel active.

Recent Colors

If you right click on the Foreground or Background color swatch, up pops a very cool feature. The Recent Colors palette, illustrated in the graphic below, contains ten standard colors on the top and the last ten colors you used on the bottom. This is a handy shortcut to set your color to black or white or to reset your colors to a recently used color.

Jasc Color Dialog Box

Paint Shop Pro installs with the Jasc Color Dialog Box selected. You can change to the Standard Windows Color Picker in General Program Preferences>Dialogs and Palettes if you wish. I prefer Jasc's Dialog Box, so that's what I will cover here. The following graphic illustrates the Color Dialog box.

Basic Colors - This palette contains 48 colors you can use as a starting point to find the color you wish. Simply click on any color box and the colors will change to the color you selected.

Custom Colors - You can set any of the sixteen squares in this palette to any custom color you wish. To set a custom color pick A color in the color picker. The color will now reside in the "New Color" box. Then right-click on the New Color box and hold down the right mouse button and drag it to any square in the Custom Colors area. Hover over a square (the cursor will look like a Spray Nozze. Release the mouse button and you will fill the square with the new custom color. When you are working on complex graphics, it is always a good idea to save the colors you use as custom colors so that they will always be available to you.

Color Wheel - When you hover the cursor over the color wheel, you will notice that it turns into the Eye Dropper tool. Click anywhere in the outer ring and you will set the color to the value nearest your click. Then you can then click anywhere inside the middle square to obtain a variation on the color you selected.

Current Color - The current color can be set as HSL (Hue, Saturation and Lightness) or as RGB (Red, Green and Blue). Or, you can set a color by pasting a HTML code for a color in the box. You can adjust the current color by dragging the mouse around on the square in the middle of the color wheel, or you can adjust the current color by clicking on the down arrow on the HSL or RGB color and using the slider.

New Color/Old Color - This box contains the most current color. Old Color contains the last color set.

Link Colors - When activated, adjustments made to the grouped color settings (RGB and HSL) will reflect the current setting for the other grouped settings. Leaving Link Colors activated will give you more control over refining a color selection.

HTML Code - When you select a color, the HTML code for that color will appear in this box. This is very handy when you are trying to match a background color. But, a better plan for a background color on a web page is to create a 5x5 pixel tile of the background color you will be using in the background of your web page graphics and use this tile as your background rather than setting the HTML code for a background color. That way, you will always have a perfect match of colors.

Please answer the following questions and sned me the answers:

1. What is controlled through the Color Palette?

2. When looking at the color swatch, which one represents the Background color?

3. What is the greatest amount of colours you can work with?

4. What is a gradient style?

5. What will the top Style swatch represent?

6. What is the Stroke when it comes to text?

7. How do you set the width of the stroke?

8. What does the bottom style button represent?

9. Can you change the angle of the gradient?

10. How do you add your own patterns to the choices?

11. What happens when you have the lock checked?

12. How many colours can you find in the Basic Colour palette?

13. Why would you use the HTML code for a color particularily when you are working on a web site?

Practical assignment using the following colour palette tutorial create the images requested below.

flood fill Tool (actually for PSP 6)

The Flood Fill tool is a very versitile tool. With it you can fill a selection with a solid color or a gradient or you can flood fill with a preset pattern. With Version 6, you can also now set a pattern texture for your flood fill.

The first control panel you encounter for the Flood Fill tool allows you to choose your Fill Style, texture, modes, opacity, tolerance and sample merged. All the choices on this panel excelpt for the Fill Style are covered in my Paint Tool Basics tutorial.

Fill Styles

Solid: When you choose Solid, you will flood fill with the foreground color if you click with the left mouse button or the background color if you click with the right mouse button. Pattern: When you choose Pattern, you need to have your pattern open on the PSP desktop. You then need to click on the second tab of the Control Panel and choose a Pattern from the drop down list.

Gradients: Your Gradient choices are Linear, Rectangular, Sunburst and Radial. After your choose your Gradient Type, click on the second tab button.

Paint Shop Pro 6 comes loaded with numerous preset gradients from a simple foreground to background to very complex gradients of numerous colors. You choose your gradient from the "Gradient:" drop down list. You also set your angle and repeats from this Control Panel. The number of repeats can create some very interesting and complex patterns. The following demonstrates all the gradient styles set to 3 repeats.

Gradient Editor

Once you have selected your Gradient, you can then edit that gradient by pressing the "Edit" button. You will then be presented with the Gradient Editor.

New: When you click the New button you will be asked to name the gradient and then you will be presented with a new blank gradient.

Copy: When you click the Copy button, you will be asked for a name for the copy you will be creating. If you want to change the settings to a preset gradient ALWAYS make a copy of it first. If you change the settings on a gradient and hit the OK button, that preset is permanently changed and you will not be able to bring back the original preset (unless you have made a backup of all your gradient presets).

Rename: When you click the Rename button you will be asked for the new name for the gradient.

Delete: When you click the Delete button, you will delete the currently selected preset. The delete is instantaneous and cannot be un-done, so make sure you have the correct preset highlighted before you hit the Delete button.

Import: When you click the Import button, you will be asked to find the "*.grd" file you want to import. This feature gives PSP users the ability to share presets.

Export: When you click the Export button, you will be asked to name the gradient you wish to export. The Export feature is rather useless since the Copy feature does the same thing. Both save your preset to the Gradients folder with a ".grd" extension.

To teach you how to use the Gradient Editor, I am including a tutorial for creating a multi color gradient.

Multi-Colored Gradient

Click on the New button and give your gradient a name. You will notice that the Fore and Back buttons on the Gradient Editor represent your currently set foreground and background colors. This is a handy feature for creating a simple Foreground to Background gradient. For the purposes of this tutorial, we are skipping these buttons.

The handles below the Gradient representation are called Thumbs. Add three new thumbs to the gradient by clicking below the Gradient box. Drag the new thumbs to 25%, 50% and 75%. Click on the left Thumb to activate it. Click on the Custom box. Hover the cursor over the box to the right of the Custom box and it will turn into they Eyedropper tool. Click on the box to bring up the Color Picker. Choose your first color (I chose Red).

Click on the Thumb at 25% to activate it. Choose a color for this thumb as per the above instructions. Repeat for the remaining thumbs.

OK, now you have a multi color gradient. You can adjust the flow of the gradient by moving the Thumbs or by dragging the diamond shaped objects above the gradient (midpoints). You can adjust the opacity of the gradient by entering a number other than 100 in the Opacity box. The Opacity works like a mask where black will be transparent and white will be the full color. Experiment with the various opacity settings. You will see the results of your experiment in the "Result" box.

Here's the result of my multi color gradient with opacity set to 50%:

Fun with the Flood Fill Tool

Instant Glow Tubes

1. Create a new graphic 200x50.

2. Set your background to a very dark version of a particular color and the foreground to a very light version of the same color.

3.Set your gradient to the Foreground-Background preset.

4.Set the angle to 180 degrees.

5. Set the repeats to 1.

Flood fill your graphic.

This glow tube can be resized without much of a loss of resolution. If you do notice some "banding" if you resize the graphic larger, use Image>Blur>Soften to take the banding out.

To create "glowing text", place your text as a "selection" and flood fill the selection with your glow tube gradient.

Pattern Text

The following image was created by flood filling text with a wood pattern then applying a Blade Pro bevel preset.

Open the pattern you wish to use for your fill (I used a wood pattern).

Set the Flood Fill tool to Pattern and then click on the second tab.

Choose your pattern from the drop down list. Flood fill with the pattern.

Apply effects if desired.

Sphere

Create a new graphic 100x100.

Set the Flood Fill tool to Sunburst Gradient.

Set your background color to the color you want your sphere to be (works best with darker brighter colors) and your foreground color to white.

Choose Foreground-Background as your gradient preset.

Set Repeats to 0, Horizontal to 35 and Vertical to 35.

Set the Selection tool to circle with Antialias checked.

Starting at 50,50 draw a circle to fill the graphic.

Flood fill.

Photographic Assignment

If you are in my Spectrum School Class please do the following:

Go with a partner and “quietly” go through the school and take five (5) pictures each that depict the essence of the school for you. Put these in a folder with the answers to reading three and put it into the drop box.

If you are doing this online, go and take five images that define your community to you.