In the illustration at the top of this page, the large black square is the foreground selection square. If you click on this, the Color Picker, shown below will be activated, and you can choose a color there, or you can click anywhere in the image to pick up a color. Clicking on the box behind the foreground square, shown with the default white color in the icon above, will activate the same color picker where you can choose a background color. If you click the two small, squares in the bottom, left hand corner of the icon above, #14 in the diagram at left, you will restore the background, and foreground colors to their default black and white. If you wish to reverse the background and foreground colors, click the curvy, double headed arrow in the upper right corner of the icon (#27 in the diagram at left). In the example shown, this would cause black to become the background, and white to be the foreground. This can be especially useful when editing a mask. The keyboard shortcut for reversing the background and foreground colors is the letter X. The shortcut key for returning the two colors to their default black and white is the letter D.

 

In the illustration below you see the color picker, which appears when you click on the background, or foreground squares. The black rectangle just right of center is the color which was in selected (in the toolbar) at the time the Color Picker was activated.

The red rectangle immediately above it is the color which has just been clicked in the large color box to the left. If, after clicking a color, you see a little cube appear next to you new color rectangle, this indicates that the color you've chosen is not Web safe.

If you click on the little cube icon, or the tiny color square, the chosen color will jump to the nearest Web safe color.

By dragging the small triangles next to the vertical color column at center, you can change the range of colors available in the large box at its left. Click anywhere in that box, or within the vertical color column itself, to select a color. The white circle barely visible at the extreme upper right side of the large color square indicates where I clicked to choose the red color currently selected. You can change your choice as many times as you like, before clicking OK to finalize your selection.

 

Check the Only Web Colors box in the bottom left corner of the box if you want only Web-safe colors to be displayed in the big color box. You will see a different, banded, color display when this option is selected. (The banding in the illustration above is due to the JPG image quality of the screen capture. The Color Picker only shows banding when you choose the Only Web Colors option.)