Affinity Designer offers several ways of choosing colors for your design.
About selecting colors
An essential requirement for efficient design is the ability to access colors easily and intuitively. Designers may have a preferred method for color selection, so Affinity Designer provides a choice:
Context toolbar—for selection of Fill and/or Stroke colors from the context toolbar that displays when a vector object is selected.
Color panel—for selection from color wheel, sliders, or boxes using different color models.
Swatches panel—for selection by swatch from different preset or custom categories, including PANTONE® Colors.
Gradient Tool—apply or edit a color gradient across your object. Choose from the tool's context toolbar.
Using the object's context toolbar:
For quick access, Fill and Stroke swatches are available from the context toolbar of any selected shape, line, or stroke.
To apply a fill or stroke color to a vector object:
Select the object.
From the context toolbar, click either the 'Stroke' or 'Fill' swatch.
From the pop-up menu, choose color from a Swatches, Color, or Gradient pane.
Using the Color panel
With the Color panel, colors can be applied to an object or adopted by a tool in just a few clicks. Opacity and noise are further color attributes which can be applied. Colors can be saved to a palette in the Swatches panel.
To select a stroke/fill color (using default HSL Color Wheel):
Click the Stroke or Fill swatch at the top left of the panel.
Click for a hue on the outer ring.
Click in the inner triangle to set the combined Saturation and Lightness.
The relevant swatch updates to the selected color.
To switch colors between the swatch selectors:
Click the double-headed arrow. The colors switch (but the active swatch selector remains the same).
To adjust opacity or noise setting:
Select the Switch to opacity/noise toggle button at the bottom-left of the panel.
Drag the slider to set the value.
To use a different color model:
Click the Panel Preferences menu, and select Sliders from the menu.
At the top right of the panel, click the current color mode displayed, e.g. RGB, to reveal a pop-up menu.
Select a different color model from the menu.
To apply a color tint:
Click the Panel Preferences menu, and select Tint from the menu.
Drag the slider to the left or right to increase or decrease the color tint, respectively.
To use a different color mode:
Click the Panel Preferences menu, and select 8 bit, 16 bit or Percentage from the menu.
To save colors to Swatches panel:
Click the Panel Preferences menu, and select one of the following:
Add Color to Swatch—adds the current color to the currently loaded palette in the Swatches panel.
Select a chord type from the Add Chord to Swatch pop-up menu—adds a chord of the current color to the currently loaded palette in the Swatches panel.
Using the Swatches panel
The Swatches panel provides color swatch presets that are selectable from various categories. You can easily apply grays, solid colors, or gradient colors as presets.
To use a color swatch:
Do one of the following:
Choose a palette category from the category pop-up menu and click a color swatch in the palette.
Click a swatch from the Recently used swatches.
Click a None swatch to make the color completely transparent.
Accessing PANTONE® Colors
PANTONE® Color palettes are available from the main Swatches panel, and will automatically become a global spot color in the document palette when applied. They are also available from the pop-up Swatches panel on the context toolbar when a shape, line, or stroke is selected.
To access PANTONE® Colors:
On the Swatches panel (or pop-up Swatches panel), from the category pop-up menu, select your preferred PANTONE palette.
To display the PANTONE® Color name and number, click on the Swatches panel's Panel Preferences menu and select Appearance > Show as List. Alternatively, you can select a category from the Swatches panel (for example, PANTONE® Formula Guide Solid Coated V4) and use the search window to locate a specific color (e.g., 129) within that category.
Registration color
Printing to PDF will allow you to include printer marks, including registration marks assigned with registration black (100%C:100%M:100%Y:100%K). Registration black will appear on any PANTONE or additional spot colors added. You can add this registration color as a swatch that can be assigned to an object on the page, creating an on-page registration mark.
To add a registration color as a swatch:
From the Swatches panel, click Panel Preferences, then select Add Registration Color.
You can then apply the swatch to an object on the page.
To use a different color model: