The Color Palette allows you to change the foreground and background colors. Choose Show Color Palette from the Window menu to display the Color Palette.

The left side of the palette allows you to select whether to set the foreground or background color. Click in the top left color swatch to set the foreground color, or in the bottom right swatch to set the background color. After choosing the foreground or background color, you can use the controls on the right of the palette to change it.

The right side of the palette changes depending on the type of picture. If a CMYK or RGB picture is active, the palette will have sliders for the color components which you can drag to set the foreground or background color. If a greyscale or palette picture is active, the palette will have small boxes representing each color or greyscale. Click on a color or greyscale box to change the foreground or background color. Alternatively, drag the slider to cycle through the greyscales or colors, or enter the greyscale or palette color number into the text controls. If a black and white picture is active, the right of the Color palette will be blank.

Amiga Users: Note that the colors shown in the Color palette are screen representations of the colors in the picture. More than one color may use the same screen color, depending on the number of colors in the picture and the number of colors available to BME. For best results, it is recommended to use a high or true color screen. Such a display requires CyberGraphX or Picasso96 and a compatible graphics card.

Picking up colors

If the color you wish to use is in the picture, you can choose the Eyedropper tool and click on the picture to pick up the color at the tip of the eyedropper pointer. Drag the eyedropper over the picture if the pixels are varying colors, until you pick up the correct color.

Hold down a Shift key to pick up the background color instead of the foreground color. If the Paint tool is selected, you can temporarily switch to the eyedropper by holding an Option (Alt) key. When you release the key, the mouse will change back to the paint crosshair.

Editing colors in palette pictures

CMYK and RGB pictures are true color systems, because you define each color used. Palette pictures are different because they use a specified number of colors selected from a true color system. Colors are referred to by number instead of by their color components.

1. Choose the Change item in the Palette submenu of the Effects menu.

The Change Palette dialog box will open. Click on a color box to pick the color to edit. Alternatively, drag the slider to cycle through the colors, or enter the palette color number into the text control.

2. Change the color components for the color.

Drag the Red, Green and Blue sliders to change the palette color.

The Change Palette dialog box also allows you to swap and copy palette colors. Copy duplicates a color used in the picture to another position in the palette. This will change the appearance of the picture definitely. Swap exchanges two colors in the palette. This will change the appearance of the picture, but remapping the colors will restore the exact appearance of the picture because swapping colors does not change the palette.

To copy a color to another color: Select the first color and click on the Copy button. The button will stay selected. Select the second color by clicking on its color box.

To swap two colors: Select the first color and click on the Swap button. The button will stay selected. Select the color to swap with the first by clicking on its color box.

Remapping colors in palette pictures

If you change the colors of the palette, you may want to restore the appearance of your picture. The Remap option restores the colors used in the picture by examining the palette to find the colors that most closely match the original colors of the picture.

To remap colors: Choose the Remap item in the Palette submenu of the Effects menu to remap the picture's pixels to the color in the current palette that best represents their original values.

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