Photoshop CS3 Undressed: Picking colors
When you need to pick up a color from somewhere in your open document, you can use the Eyedropper tool to sample the color and have Photoshop automatically set the foreground color to the sampled color.
House in which Frank Skinner grew up, Birmingham :: Copyright © Shangara Singh :: MPX Stock Images
Once set, the foreground color can be used by the painting tools or to fill or stroke. All very basic and rudimentary knowledge. But did you know you can:
- Set the background color by holding down Alt/Opt as you sample
- Set the sample area to point sample or an average from 3 × 3 pixels to 101 × 101 pixels
- Sample color as HTML
- Sample from any open document in Photoshop
- Sample from any window on your desktop
To set the sample target area, select the Eyedropper tool, click on the Sample Size pop-up menu on the options bar and choose a value. Alternatively, call the context menu by right-clicking, Ctrl-clicking in the document window and then choose a value.
When deciding which sample target area to use, Point Sample is not usually the best option for day to day use. The reason why it’s not recommended is because you can easily end up clicking on a pixel that’s not representative of the color you are trying to target. By way of example, here is a 1600% magnification of the grass being sampled in the above image.
Eyedropper target sample area magnified 1600%.
As you can see, moving the Eyedropper one or two pixels in any direction will produce a different result. For that reason, an average sample is preferable. Either of the 3×3 or 5×5 settings is safer in day to day use.
To sample a color as HTML, call the context menu by right-clicking, Ctrl-clicking in the document window and then choose Copy Color as HTML. The target color is copied onto the clipboard as a hexadecimal color code (for example, color=”#2e345f”), which you can paste in your HTML document.
To sample from any open document in Photoshop is the same as sampling from the current document. Simply select the document from the Window menu or use Ctrl+Tab to work down the list and make it the current document, sample and then select the document you were working on previously. Using Ctrl+Shift+Tab will select the next document going up the list in the Window menu. Useful shortcuts if you have lots of documents open.
So how do you sample from any window on your desktop? Easy, once you know how! Select the Eyedropper tool, click anywhere in an open document, keep the mouse button pressed, drag the icon to the target and let go of the mouse button. Viola!
That’s all for now, folks!
Copyright©2008, Shangara Singh.
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