Adobe PHOTOSHOP 5.0, User Manual, Page: 222 / 400

CHAPTER 9 214
Painting
Choosing the foreground and
background colors
Adobe Photoshop uses the foreground color to
paint, fill, and stroke selections and the
background color to make gradient fills and fill in
the erased areas of an image. You can designate a
new foreground or background color using the
eyedropper tool, the Color palette, the Swatches
palette, or the Photoshop Color Picker.
The current foreground color appears in the top
color selection box in the toolbox, the background
color in the lower box. The default foreground
color is black, and the default background is white.
(If you are viewing an alpha channel, the default
foreground is white, and the background is black.)
A. Foreground color B. Default Colors
C. Switch Colors D. Background color
The Info palette, the Color palette, and the Color
Picker let you display color values using a number
of color models. (See “Color modes and models”
on page 63.)
To reverse the foreground and background colors:
Click the Switch Colors icon in the toolbox.
To return to the default foreground and background
colors:
Click the Default Colors icon in the toolbox.
To change the foreground or background color:
1
Do one of the following:
•
To change the foreground color, click the top
color selection box in the toolbox.
•
To change the background color, click the lower
color selection box in the toolbox.
2
Choose a color, as explained in “Using the
Adobe Photoshop Color Picker” on page 218, and
click OK.
To switch between the foreground and
background colors, press X on the
keyboard.
Using the eyedropper tool
With the eyedropper tool ( ), you sample color
from an image to designate a new foreground or
background color. You can sample from the active
image or from another image. (When you’re using
the eyedropper, you can click in a background
window without making it the active window.)
You can also specify the area sampled by the
eyedropper tool. For example, you can set the
eyedropper to sample the color values of a
3-by-3-pixel area under the pointer. Modifying the
sample size of the eyedropper affects the color
readouts displayed in the Info palette.
C
D
A
B