Colour picking

[kangarolf]

Hi all,

I especially like using the colour picker in Adobe photoshop, anywhere where I must select a colour I am free to colour pick from anywhere on the screen.

Is there a similar feature in Coreldraw that I am missing..for instance if I have a colour on the screen somewhere and wish to use it at one end of a gradient I must either select the item and take a note of the RGB values and enter them manually, or select the item then double click the colour box in the system tray and add to the pallette. This second option soon gets confusing if you have many similar colours you are trying to use in different part of the application.

Thanks all
Rolf

[mhamm]

It depends on which version of Corel you have. In the older versions 8, 10, there wasn't a feature that allowed you to color select items. In 12 and X3, there is an eyedropper tool that allows you to select color from either bitmaps or vector objects. You can also select color from webpages and even the desktop by selecting the eyedropper tool then going to the options across the top and choosing, "select from desktop." Then you can select from anywhere. Once you have the color you can then use the paintbucket tool(just to the left of the eyedropper tool) and fill an object with the color. Hope this helps.

[kangarolf]

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I know of the eyedropper tool and the paintbucket (its annoying that you cant quickly select which aspects you want to copy to the new object).

What I was talking about was in menus where you dont have access to that tool, such as in a gradient tool, or other such areas. It becomes cumbersome to try and make sure you are using the same colours as there is generally no colour picker except on the main toolbar which is not accesible from within the other tools.

Thanks
Rolf

[mhamm]

Oh I see. Not sure if this helps but you can select the new object that you want to applied say a gradient blend to and the original object with the gradient blend and just go to the gradient blend box in the toolbar and apply it again, and it will apply the effect to both shapes. This works for colors, gradients, drop shadows, outlines etc... Let me know if this helps.

[kangarolf]

Thanks again, yes I know about that..it works for most applied effects. This is more of a general work around for quickly selecting colours that you have already used on a page...for instance if I colour a square in a basic colour, then I wanted to adjust a gradient to start with that colour or have that colour in the middle (the more complicated the fill the more complicated the fudge) Id have to either remember/write down the RGB values and use them..or copy the fill from the simple object and recreate the gradient afterwards. This would be a lot easier if there were some way to quickly colour pick from anywhere on screen.

It is this sort of procedure that Im looking for a better way that I might not be awarew of...otherwise...COREL get a colour picker on all colour menus! This is almost as akward as finding out you cant save a selection on Illustrator!

Rolf

[mhamm]

I see...I usually have to write down the numbers too. Ill and Photoshop are ahead of the curve on this feature. Maybe you should write to Corel and
suggest this feature for future versions. Even the newer color picker isn't very accurate. Especially if you need the exact color. Also the picker only works in RGB and not CMYK which can make a big difference. I usually match visiually or you can use PMS colors. Good Luck