Introduction
[Jan Kabili]: There are a number of Tools and features in Photoshop that apply color.
Everything from the Brush tool, to the Type tool, to the Shape tool, to the Fill... command under the Edit menu and more.
The primary color that most of those use
Understanding foreground and background colors
is stored down here at the bottom of the Tools panel, in this box, the Foreground Color box.
There are a number of different ways to set the foreground color, which we'll be looking at later in this tutorial.
Setting colors with the Eyedropper tool
For now, let's use a simple way - the Eyedropper tool, which is located here in the Tools panel.
I'll select that tool and then I'll move into the image and I'll click on a color, like this orange.
And that sets the foreground color to orange.
So now, if I go to the Brush tool or any other tool that applies color and I use that tool it makes use of that foreground color.
There's a Background Color box too.
Using the background color and gradients
Mine happens to be white, at the moment.
That comes into play less often than the foreground color.
For example, the background color is used as a secondary color for the Gradient tool.
A tool that lets you draw a gradual blend of color from the foreground to the background color.
Another use of the background color is just to have another color handy so you can quickly switch to another color when you're doing something like painting.
To switch between the foreground and background colors,
Switching colors and using keyboard shortcuts
click the double-pointed bent arrow just above the Color boxes.
Now I'll go back to the Eyedropper tool and I'll click on another color in the image. [clicking] And that sets the new foreground color.
So now I have red as my foreground color and orange as my background color.
As I said, I can quickly switch between these 2 colors either by pressing these double-pointed arrows or using the keyboard shortcut X.
Black and white are the default colors.
Resetting to default black and white colors
If you ever need to get back to those colors quickly press D on your keyboard.
And the foreground color is now black and the background color white.
So, that's an introduction to where to store and access colors as you're working with the color tools.
Stay tuned for the next video where we'll explore alternative ways to choose colors in Photoshop.
