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The two boxes at the bottom of the Tools bar are the Foreground and Background Color boxes. They are interchangeable using the double-arrow button just below. The higher box is always the foreground color and the lower box the background color. |
Whenever you use a paintbrush or pencil tool, it is the current foreground color that is applied. Whenever you erase pixels from the background or lowest layer in an image, it is the current background or foreground color, depending on which one you chose in the "New" dialog, that shows through in a printout, in Print Preview or when viewed through a higher transparent layer.
You can change the color in either of the boxes by clicking on the box to open up the "Select Color" dialog.
In here you can select a color by using the mouse to drag the crossed lines in the larger box or the single line in the tall thin box. The latter gives you an approximate color range, while the former enables greater fine tuning. Alternatively, you can set a color exactly by entering the right figures for Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Red, Green and Blue in the boxes to the right. You can also use the respective sliders to do this. The result will be displayed immediately in the Preview box. Whichever way you set the color all the relevant indicators will change together to reflect the current color: the color boxes, the Preview box, the sliders, and the measurement boxes. Once you are satisfied, click on OK.
The relevant color box on the Tools bar will be given the new color.
Note that as you change the colors in the Foreground and Background Color boxes, the old ones are stored in the "Recent Colors" dialog. (If this is not visible, select Recent Colors from the View menu.)
Select any of these colors to make it the current Foreground Color.
You can use the Color Picker (see Color picker) to select a color from an image and make it the Foreground Color.
While we are on the topic of color it is worth mentioning that the Information dialog (select View/Information if this is not visible) can give you useful data about the color values in an image, amongst other valuable pieces of information (see Information dialog).