Before we get started on this concept, let’s review a little bit about colour.

 

When you look in the Photoshop tool box, you will see two overlapping squares. The square that is on top represents your current foreground colour. The square that is on the bottom (one corner underneath the top square) represents your current background colour.

 

An obvious question at this point is, what are the foreground and background colours use for?

 

Basically, if you paint with a brush, or use the paint bucket tool to fill part of your image, the colour that will be applied is the foreground colour. If you want to use the background colour to paint on your canvas, or fill a selected area, click the small curved arrow at the upper right of the colour squares in the toolbox. This will switch the foreground and background colours (now the background colour will be in the foreground). If you want to revert to the default foreground and background colour, click the two small squares (one black, the other white) at the lower left of the main colour squares in the toolbox.

 

To choose a foreground colour, double click on the foreground colour square in the toolbox. This will display the colour picker dialog box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can now hold your left mouse button and drag around the colour picker’s colour window. As you drag your mouse pointer, you will see the upper half of the preview box in the upper right change into the colour your mouse pointer is currently on. The lower half of the preview box will be covered with the current foreground colour. Looking at this preview window, you can directly compare the current background colour with the colour you are about to select. To select the colour, release your mouse button, and click the OK button.

 

To select from other shades of colour, you can drag the sliders on the sides of the vertical colour bar in the middle of the colour picker box. The large window on the left will assume the shades of colour associated with the position of the sliders on the colour bar. You can also click on the colour bar to change the position of the sliders.

 

You will notice a field with a (#) number sign next to it near the bottom of the colour picker. You can directly enter a hexadecimal number directly into this field to specify an RGB colour exactly. This can be useful if you are trying to exactly duplicate a colour, and you know a hexadecimal number for it.

 

You will also see radio buttons and small data fields labelled H, S, and B for hue saturation, and Brightness, R, G, B for red, green, and blue, and C, M, Y, K, for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. You can enter values directly in any of the fields associated with these different colour schemes, to specify your foreground colour.

 

At the bottom left of the colour picker dialog box, you will see a checkbox labelled Only Web Colours. If you put a check in this box, the colour picker will limit the available colours to web colours. Web colours are colours that were chosen in such a way as to have some consistency across many types of monitors and web browsers. If you are designing graphics for the Web, consider using web colours to ensure that there is some consistency between what you create and what is viewed over the Web.

 

 

 

 

If you click the custom button in the colour picker, the custom colours box will appear on the Photoshop screen.

 

 

Again, you will see a slider switch along a vertical colour bar, allowing you to adjust the range of colours that will appear as colour stripes or blocks at the left. You can select the foreground colour by clicking one of these colour stripes or blocks. If you expose the drop list labelled Book, at the top of the custom colours box, you will see a lengthy list of colour options that you to choose from. These colours (i.e. Pantone colours) form a colour system created from pre designed and specified colours. These colours are often used for consistency in printing, and may appear quite different from monitor to monitor.

 

 

You can select one of these colours for your foreground colour by clicking on it in the list.

 

If at any time you want to return to the colour picker, click the Picker button.

 

Essentially, choosing a background colour is an exactly similar process to choosing a foreground colour. If you click on the background square in the toolbox, a colour picker dialog box will appear for choosing a background colour. The controls and options for choosing the background colour are the same as for choosing the foreground colour