- All 16.7 Million Colors of the Rainbow
- First Blush: Your Initial Color Choices
- Easier Choices: Picking from Fewer Colors
- Color Count Correction
First Blush: Your Initial Color Choices
When you click the New button, the New Image dialog box presents you with two different color-related decisions that you have to make (see Figure 3.3). You have to choose your background color, and you have to choose how many colors you're allowed to play with. Both of these options are in the Image Characteristics area of the dialog box.
){kind=link}
Figure 3.3 Ah, if only I had as much control over my personal image as I do over a new PSP image....
Backgrounds: We Were All Born Young
The first option you have to choose is your background color. There are eight different possibilities here:
Choose Foreground Color or Background Color if you want to use one of the colors you've selected as your Stroke/Foreground Solid Color or Fill/Background Solid Color. (And if you think you're the only one who finds it weird that there are options besides Background Color to select for a background color, you're right!)
Choose White, Black, Red, Green, or Blue to get a background of one of those colors. If you're looking for a red, green, or blue background, however, you might do better to select it using the Foreground Color or Background Color options. Otherwise, you might not get the right shade of those colors.
Transparent is an option that's there so that you can create images that aren't rectangular. If you choose this, there is no background in the image itself; if you put it on a Web page or a document, the page color shows through anywhere you have not painted. (While you're working on the image, Paint Shop Pro displays a checkerboard pattern in the background. Don't worry; that pattern doesn't show up on your finished image.)
Image Type: How Many Crayons Will We Use?
The next selection deals with how many different colors you will actually be able to use in your image. The first instinct is to say "I want to be able to use them all!" But that's like seeing the dessert cart and saying you want everything. It might not end up being the best choice.
The more colors you tell Paint Shop Pro that you want to use, the more disk space the file you end up making fills. This is true even if you only actually have two colors in your picture. Using more colors also means that Paint Shop Pro runs a bit slower, particularly if you're making a large image on a computer without much RAM memory.
Is Hue For You?
In addition to the red, green, blue method of color selection, Paint Shop Pro also offers you the chance to use the hue, saturation, light method. The three values you set are:
Hue The base color. There's no easy way to remember which color goes with which number, but you don't have to. Just click the color wheel, and on the center of the box inside the color wheel to set the Hue value for that color.
Saturation The richness of the color. A low value gives you a dull color, and a high value gives you a rich color. When you set it to zero, you end up with gray.
Light The brightness of the color. The higher the value, the brighter the color. When you set it zero, it is so dark that it will be black, no matter what hue you picked. Set it to 255, and it will be pure white. In between, you get the hue you chose in various levels of brightness.
Most people working with computer graphics prefer to work with the red, green, blue (RGB) method rather than the hue, saturation, light (HSL) method (sometimes called hue, saturation, value or HSV). This is because the RGB method is a little more precise, and exactly matches the way the computer handles color internally. HSL values have to be converted to RGB values before the color is displayed. However, it's often easier to fine-tune a color in HSL; get your hue right, and then make small adjustments to your saturation and light settings.
With this color selector, you don't have to choose one way or the other. You can make adjustments in any way you choose.
By using the Image Type drop-down list, you can select from the following amounts of colors:
2 Colors sets up a black-and-white drawing (no shades of gray).
16 Colors gives you 16 basic colors to draw with.
Greyscale offers you the use 256 different shades of grey, like a black-and-white photo.
256 Colors gives you a pretty good set of colors. (This is the largest number of colors that you can use if you're trying to create non-rectangular graphics for the Web.)
16.7 Million Colors is definitely what you want if you're working with color photographs.
When you're a beginner—playing around and seeing what all the Paint Shop Pro tools can do—you're best off working with 16.7 million colors. The mode is more flexible, and some of the tools don't work in the fewer color modes. And it's more fun!