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About this lesson

The Swatches panel is not complicated, but getting a good grasp on how it works early on is of enormous value as so many projects work within a given color scheme. Being able to manage those colors and access them quickly is a real time saver.

Exercise files

There are no related exercise files for this lesson, or we cannot provide them due to copyright issues.

Quick reference

Topic

Getting used to the Swatches Panel.

When to use

The Swatches Panel is not complicated, but getting a good grasp on how it works early on is of enormous value, as so many projects work within a given color scheme. Being able to manage those colors and access them quickly is a real time saver.

Instructions

Finding the panel

  • Usually on the right hand side, on the top.
  • If it is not there, go to the Window dropdown menu and select ‘Swatches’

Setting colors from the swatches

  • Foreground color: click on the color that you want
  • Background color: Hold Command or Control and click on the swatch

Quick delete a swatch color

  • Hold down ALT or Option and click on the swatch
  • Drag a swatch to the bin at the bottom of the panel

Creating a new swatch

  • Click on the create new swatch icon (next to the bin in the panel)
  • Holding down ALT or Option will allow you to bypass naming it

Tip

Double clicking on a swatch color will give you the color properties (RGB values, for example).

 

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  • 00:04 First, just like the rest the PhotoShop’s panels your swatches can be found on the
  • 00:08 right hand side of your workspace.
  • 00:10 Or, if you don't see them there, you could activate it under the Window menu at the top.
  • 00:14 In short, the Swatches Panel allows you
  • 00:18 to quickly select and save colors that you use often in your projects.
  • 00:22 When you first install PhotoShop many common colors are available
  • 00:26 as swatches and clicking on any of them will activate that color
  • 00:30 as your foreground color, as seen at the bottom of the tools bar.
  • 00:34 Now if you hold in your Command or Control key,
  • 00:37 (Command on the Mac, Control in Windows), any swatches you click
  • 00:41 will become the background color instead of the foreground color.
  • 00:45 So a simple left click will define your foreground color,
  • 00:47 add in your Command or Control key again to fill your background color.
  • 00:50 Now usually, especially when using
  • 00:53 eyedropper tool, holding down ALT or Option and clicking will assign the background
  • 00:58 color,
  • 00:58 but in the Swatches Panel, holding down ALT or Option allows you
  • 01:02 to quickly delete a swatch. You'll notice when I position my cursor
  • 01:06 over top of a swatch and then hold down my Option key on my Mac,
  • 01:09 a scissors icon appears, indicating that when I click, that swatch will be deleted.
  • 01:13 You can also drag a swatch to the trash icon,
  • 01:18 but that's no fun. Now in terms of creating a new swatch,
  • 01:21 you first need to set your desired foreground color in the color picker.
  • 01:25 This can be done using the eyedropper to sample the color on an open image.
  • 01:30 You can adjust the hue up and down using the slider and set the brightness and
  • 01:33 saturation
  • 01:34 by dragging the circle to your final choice. Or you can enter a hex value at
  • 01:38 the bottom right.
  • 01:39 If you're into flat design, flatUIcolors.com is a simple website
  • 01:44 that will allow you to copy a hex code directly to your clipboard
  • 01:48 simply by clicking on the color of your choice. Let's copy 'carrot'.
  • 01:54 And then when you are back in PhotoShop, pasting it into the hex
  • 01:57 field will create that color. Now that your foreground color is set,
  • 02:01 to create a new swatch you can either click on the 'create new swatch icon'
  • 02:05 or click on an empty area in the Swatches Panel.
  • 02:08 This will bring up a dialog box allowing you to name that new swatch.
  • 02:12 Let's stick with carrot. Now if you don't care too much about the name,
  • 02:16 holding down ALT or Option while creating new swatch will skip the main dialogue box
  • 02:21 completely.
  • 02:24 Just like most panels in PhotoShop, a menu can be revealed
  • 02:27 at the top right corner of the Swatches Panel. This is where you can change the
  • 02:31 way you view swatches.
  • 02:33 You can reset, load and save your swatches,
  • 02:36 and you can access the packs that Adobe has included with PhotoShop.
  • 02:41 Selecting any of these packs will give you the option to append
  • 02:45 or add them to your list: appending will place the new swatches at the end of
  • 02:50 the current ones.
  • 02:51 Pressing OK will replace them completely.

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