The Color Studio is used to choose color for various brush tools and to apply color to the stroke and fill of vector shapes, lines, and text.
About the Color Studio
The Studio can operate in several color modes—RGB, HSL, CMYK, LAB and Grayscale—and has various ways of presenting color options—as a color wheel (HSL only) or using sliders.
Color Studio: (A) Foreground/Background color selectors, (B) Color Picker Tool and picked color swatch, (C) Color model selection, (D) Default HSL color wheel, (E) Opacity control associated with color, (F) Noise control for graininess effect, (G) Swatches section for storing colors and palette control.
The active color selector is shown at the front of the two color selectors. Choosing a new color will apply it to the active color selector.
For vector shapes, lines and text, the color selector is for stroke and fill color instead of Foreground and Background color, 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 Color Studio
With the Color Studio, colors 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 color.
Color display options and color models
When choosing colors in the Color Studio, you can choose different ways to present color options (e.g., by wheel or slider) and different color models. For example, if you want to design a hi-res print document, you could select color using CMYK Sliders to match with a CMYK color profile chosen at document setup. This doesn't change the working color profile of the document, but changes the input values for the colors only.
The following color options are available using the navigation buttons.
Color 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 color options and models.
Drag sliders or type directly into the value boxes to set the color values.
To set the color of a selector:
Tap the selector you want to apply the color to. It will show at the front of the two color selectors.
Do one of the following:
Select a color from the color wheel or slider.
Tap the picked color swatch (if you've previously color picked).
Select one of the five most Recent Colors.
Using the Color Picker
The Studio's picker lets you sample colors from your page, then use them in your design.
To use the Color Picker:
Drag the Color Picker icon to the color you want to sample.
Tap the selector in the Color Studio you want to apply the color to.
Tap the swatch next to the Color Picker to apply the color.
Saving chosen colors for later use
Once your color has been chosen and applied to a tool or content, there are several ways to preserve this color 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 color 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 colors 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 color palettes either for the document or the application.
Swatches are organized into color palettes by category.
(A) Fill/Stroke color selectors, (B) Color picker Tool and picked color swatch, (C) Swatches menu, (D) Swatch or list view, (E) Category color palette swatches, (F) Quick colors (None, Black, Mid-gray and White swatches), (G) Recently used colors.
The Swatches section also hosts some 'quick' colors, i.e. None, Black, Mid-gray and White swatches, as well as the five most recently used colors.
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® Colors. These palettes are available to any Affinity document.
You can permanently store custom colors 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 color palettes
To create a new palette:
With the Swatches section open, tap Studio Preferences and choose an 'Add Palette' option.
To save a color or gradient to a palette:
Choose the color 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.
Color 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 Color Picker:
The following options are available from the Studio Preferences menu within the Swatches section.