Color panel (Photo Persona only)

The Color panel 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 panel

The Color panel can operate in several color modes—RGB, RGB Hex, HSL, CMYK, LAB and Grayscale—and has various ways of presenting color options—using sliders, a color wheel (HSL only), or color boxes. Color tints can also be applied from within the panel.

Color panel

Color panel (RGB sliders): (A) Set Foreground/Set Background color selectors with color 'none' swatch and 'swap' arrow, (B) RGB sliders, (C) RGB spectrum, (D) Opacity/Noise/Intensity toggle, (E) Panel Preferences, (F) Color model selection, (G) Color Picker and picked color swatch, (H) Opacity control, (I) Noise control, (J) Intensity control (32 bit documents only).

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.

Using the Color panel

With the Color panel, colors can be set for use by a tool in just a few clicks. Opacity and noise are further color attributes which can be applied via slider. Additionally, for 32-bit unbounded HDR documents, an intensity attribute is available as a slider for creating unbounded color values.

To set the color of a selector:
  1. Click the selector you want to apply the color to. It will show at the front of the two color selectors.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • Choose a color from the color model's Sliders, Wheel (HSL only), or Boxes.
    • Click the picked color swatch.
    • Click the None swatch to make the color completely transparent (for the tool, fill or stroke).
To switch colors between the selectors:
To adjust opacity, noise or intensity setting:
  1. Select the Opacity/Noise/Intensity toggle button at the bottom-left of the panel.
  2. Drag the slider to set the value.

Color selection preferences and color models

Panel Preferences When choosing colors in the Color panel, you can choose from various selection preferences and color model values. The color selection preferences are changed in the Panel Preferences menu.

Depending on the color model selected, you can also choose to work in 8 bit, 16 bit or Percentage mode.

Some of the selection methods allow you to set color using values other than RGB. This doesn't change the working color profile of the document, but changes the input values for the colors.

Panel Preferences The following color selection preferences are available from the Panel Preferences menu.

The HSL color wheel's Saturation/Lightness control can be changed from Triangle to Square via the Panel Preferences menu.

Lock/Unlock For any selected object, the Color panel will remember the color mode that the object was created in. Instead, using Sliders you can lock the color mode (e.g., CMYK sliders) to prevent the mode from changing. This avoids inadvertently swapping to another mode after using swatches or selecting a different object created with a different color mode. This lock only works on the current session; subsequent sessions will use the HSL color wheel as default.

Using the Color Picker

The picker lets you sample colors within or outside Affinity Photo 2, then use them in your design.

Color Picker To use the Color Picker:
  1. Drag the Color Picker to the color you want to sample.
  2. Click the selector in the Color or Swatches panel you want to apply the color to.
  3. Click 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.

Panel Preferences The following options are available from the Panel Preferences menu.

SEE ALSO: