The Colour Studio is used to choose colour for various brush tools and to apply colour to the stroke and fill of vector shapes, lines, and text.
About the Colour Studio
The Studio can operate in several colour modes—RGB, HSL, CMYK, LAB and Greyscale—and has various ways of presenting colour options—as a colour wheel (HSL only) or using sliders.
Colour Studio:
(A) Foreground/Background colour selectors, (B) Colour Picker Tool and picked colour swatch, (C) Colour model selection, (D) Default HSL colour wheel, (E) Opacity control associated with colour, (F) Noise control for graininess effect, (G) Swatches section for storing colours and palette control.
The active colour selector is shown at the front of the two colour selectors. Choosing a new colour will apply it to the active colour selector.
For vector shapes, lines and text, the colour selector is for stroke and fill colour instead of Foreground and Background colour, respectively.
Tap the pin icon in the top right of the Studio to hide the Studio automatically when you are no longer focusing on it.
Using the Colour Studio
With the Colour Studio, colours can be set for use by a tool in just a few taps. Opacity and noise are further attributes which can be applied with a colour.
Colour display options and colour models
When choosing colours in the Colour Studio, you can choose different ways to present colour options (e.g., by wheel or slider) and different colour models. For example, if you want to design a hi-res print document, you could select colour using CMYK Sliders to match with a CMYK colour profile chosen at document setup. This doesn't change the working colour profile of the document, but changes the input values for the colours only.
The following colour options are available using the navigation buttons.
Colour Wheel (HSL)
Drag on the outer ring to set the hue.
Drag in the triangle to set saturation and lightness.
Sliders (HSL, RGB, CMYK, LAB, Grey)
Tap the left/right navigation buttons under the swatches to jump between colour options and models.
Drag sliders or type directly into the value boxes to set the colour values.
To set the colour of a selector:
Tap the selector you want to apply the colour to. It will show at the front of the two colour selectors.
Do one of the following:
Select a colour from the colour wheel or slider.
Tap the picked colour swatch (if you've previously colour picked).
Select one of the five most Recent Colours.
Using the Colour Picker
The Studio's picker lets you sample colours from your page, then use them in your design.
To use the Colour Picker:
Drag the Colour Picker icon to the colour you want to sample.
Tap the selector in the Colour Studio you want to apply the colour to.
Tap the swatch next to the Colour Picker to apply the colour.
Saving chosen colours for later use
Once your colour has been chosen and applied to a tool or content, there are several ways to preserve this colour for later use.
The following options are available from the Studio Preferences menu within the Swatches section.
Add Application Palette—creates an application palette in the Swatches section.
Add Document Palette—creates a document palette in the Swatches section.
Add current fill to palette—with a palette selected, adds the currently selected colour to the palette in the Swatches section.
Rename Palette—allows you to rename the currently selected palette.
Remove Palette—removes the currently selected palette.
Using swatches
The Swatches section stores your recently used colours and lets you access a range of predefined palettes, each containing solid or gradient fill swatches. These can be selected for use with various tools and for applying directly to objects. You can also create and store your own swatches in custom colour palettes either for the document or the application.
Swatches are organised into colour palettes by category.
(A) Fill/Stroke colour selectors, (B) Colour picker Tool and picked colour swatch, (C) Swatches menu, (D) Swatch or list view, (E) Category colour palette swatches, (F) Quick colours (None, Black, Mid-grey and White swatches), (G) Recently used colours.
The Swatches section also hosts some 'quick' colours, i.e. None, Black, Mid-grey and White swatches, as well as the five most recently used colours.
Palettes
The following types of palette exist within Affinity Designer:
Document—these palettes are saved within the current document.
Application—these palettes are saved within Affinity Designer. These palettes are available to any Affinity Designer document.
PANTONE®—these palettes are based on PANTONE® Colours. These palettes are available to any Affinity document.
You can permanently store custom colours and gradients that you use most often in any of the palettes or you can create custom palettes to host them. Although we recommend that you always create your own custom categories.
Creating and saving to custom colour palettes
To create a new palette:
With the Swatches section open, tap Studio Preferences and choose an 'Add Palette' option.
To save a colour or gradient to a palette:
Choose the colour from the HSL wheel or equivalent.
Open the Swatches section, and select a palette from the category list.
From the Studio Preferences, select Add current fill to palette.
To rename or delete a saved swatch:
Long press the swatch you want to rename or delete and choose Rename or Delete from the pop-up menu.
Colour Studio
Tap the pin icon in the top right of the Studio to hide the Studio automatically when you are no longer focusing on it.
To use the Colour Picker:
The following options are available from the Studio Preferences menu within the Swatches section.