Using the Materials palette

To display or hide the Materials palette
To swap the foreground and background colors or materials

PaintShop Pro lets you paint, draw, and fill with a variety of styles and materials.

• A style is a color, gradient, or pattern.
• A material is the style plus an optional texture.

Both styles and materials can be selected from the Materials palette.

You can display the Materials palette at any time. You can leave it open while you work, or you can display it only when you need it.

You can also reverse the foreground and background colors or materials.

 

 The Materials palette
1 Swatches tab
2 HSL Map tab
3 Sliders tab
4 Foreground and Stroke Properties
5 Background and Fill Properties
6 Foreground and Background color boxes
7 Swap Colors button
8 Transparent option
9 Texture button
10 Style — Color, Gradient, Pattern
11 Recently Used
12 Sample Color tool
13 Add to Palette and Remove from Palette
14 Set to Black and White
15 Current palette
16 Palette selection menu

Main components of the Materials palette

• Swatches tab — displays swatches for the currently selected palette. Swatches are materials you can save to use again. For more information about swatches, see Working with custom color palettes and swatches.
• HSL Map tab — displays a Saturation and Lightness box that you can click to adjust the currently selected color or click to adjust a new color that you select by dragging the slider on the Color (hue) bar.
• Sliders tab — displays sliders and value boxes that you can use to set a color in the following color spaces: RGB, HSL, CMYK, Lab, Web safe. You can also set a shade using Grayscale.
• Foreground and Stroke and Background and Fill Properties boxes — display the current foreground and background materials, which consist of the style (color, gradient, or pattern) and optional texture. You can click either box to display the Material Properties dialog box, in which you can set material options. These boxes can be used in the following ways:
• You can use foreground materials for brush strokes and background materials for fills.
• When you apply strokes with a brush (including the fill tools), clicking lets you paint with the foreground material, and right-clicking lets you paint with the background material.
• When you are using the Art Media tools, you can set the foreground color for the pigment that you apply to the canvas.
• For text and vector shapes, you can set the foreground color for the stroke (or outline) of the text or shape, and the background color for the fill of the text or shape. For more information about changing the color of text and vector objects, see To modify vector object properties.
• Foreground and Background Color boxes — display the current foreground and background color and let you set colors regardless of current material
• Style button — shows which style is currently selected: color , gradient , or pattern . To change between the most recently selected color, gradient, and pattern, you can click the Style button and select a new style from the drop-list. Note that these options are disabled for the Art Media tools, which use only solid colors.
• Texture button — turns the current texture on or off
• Set to Black and White button — sets the foreground to black and the background to white. This is helpful when you use the Edit Selection command.
• Transparent button — specifies whether the foreground or background material is transparent. You use a transparent material primarily with vector objects and text. A transparent foreground has no outline (only the objects or letters are filled), and a transparent background has no fill (only the objects or letters are outlined). This button is unavailable for tools that require a foreground or background material.
• All tools check box — specifies whether the selected foreground and background materials apply to all tools. If the check box is unmarked, the selected materials apply only to the active tool.

Why does the Materials palette have both properties and color boxes?

You can select colors by clicking the Foreground and Background Properties boxes, so you may wonder why the Materials palette also includes color boxes. The color boxes provide a quick way to change colors without changing the other materials. This means that you can select a new color even when the properties box displays a gradient or pattern.

If the properties boxes and the color boxes on the Materials palette are showing different colors, the brush paints with the gradient, texture, or pattern shown in the properties boxes rather than with the color in the color boxes. The colors shown in the color boxes become active when you select Color from the Style buttons for the Foreground and Background Properties boxes.

To display or hide the Materials palette

Back to Top
Edit tab 
• Choose View Palettes Materials.

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You can also close the palette by clicking the Close button in the palette’s title bar or by pressing F2.

To swap the foreground and background colors or materials

Back to Top
Edit tab 
• From the Materials palette, click the Swap Colors button or click the Swap Materials button .

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