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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    London
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    4

    Default Ok with Tints, stuck with Shades

    Hi All

    I'm trying to match a colour. I have a small sample of the colour, which I've scanned in. I want to print out the final colour and so have a colour-matching issue across both the scanner and printer, though I'm not needing 100% accuracy.

    From the scanned image I've found the 'dominant' RGB value and have made a simple rectangle in Xara (Pro X). What I wanted to do was make further rectangles with darker and lighter shades of this named 'base' colour. Once printed I can simply match by eye to obtain the actual value.

    As the title says I can use tints of the base colour to make lighter variants but, as the manual says, I need to use 'shades' to get darker ones.

    But I can't figure out what the two '%' fields represent when one chooses 'shade of another colour'. I've experimented by putting various values in the fields . The left field seems to relate to 'lightness' and the right field to 'darkness' and the manual shows values in both fields, but if my assumption is correct (and I don't think it is) then surely they'd cancel each other out - but they don't!

    So what do the two fields represent and how do I use them to achieve darkening shades of the base colour in 5% steps?

    Cheers

    Andy

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    21,283

    Default Re: Ok with Tints, stuck with Shades

    ok

    in the xara colour editor, if you set both percentages to 0% then you have the parent colour

    if you increase the right-hand percentage with + value you increase the amount of hue [cursor in the box moves upwards] - with a negative value you decrease the amount of hue [cursor in the box moves down]

    if you increase the left-hand percentage with + value you increase the amount of added white [cursor in box moves right] - with a negative value you decrease the amount of white [cursor in box moves left]

    as you are dealing with light 'black' is 'no white' so you could think in terms of black instead of white, but one or the other, not both....

    make sense?

    also tints and shades don't mean quite the same thing as they do when painting with pigments...

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    London
    Posts
    4

    Default Re: Ok with Tints, stuck with Shades

    Hi

    Thanks for the reply and the excellent explanation. I'd noticed the cross-hair moving but hadn't seen the up/down & left/right relationship to the fields.

    Quote Originally Posted by handrawn View Post

    make sense?
    It sure does now!

    Many thanks.

    Andy

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    21,283

    Default Re: Ok with Tints, stuck with Shades

    pleasure - my end of the program, can't be doing with all the web-stuff

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    Dunoon, Scotland
    Posts
    4,778

    Default Re: Ok with Tints, stuck with Shades

    Once you have your end colour you could do a blend between them both to give you a palette to use in your drawing.
    Design is thinking made visual.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    21,283

    Default Re: Ok with Tints, stuck with Shades

    it's a good suggestion - blends don't necessarily give you precision to the RGB values, but they are quick and easy for general use

 

 

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