Selecting colors in After Effects (6.5)

Many features in After Effects let you select a color to work with, including the brush tool, the Character palette, user interface preferences, and several effects. You select colors in After Effects 6.5 using either the Eyedropper or the Adobe Color Picker. The Eyedropper lets you select a color by sampling the color of a single pixel or a range of pixels anywhere on your computer screen.The Adobe Color Picker lets you select a color from a color spectrum or specify colors numerically.


Adobe Color Picker dialog box A. Picked color B. Original color C. Color slider triangles D. Hue Saturation Brightness color values E. Red Green Blue color values F. Hexidecimal color value G. Color slider

To select a color with the Eyedropper:

1. Click a feature's Eyedropper button, and move the Eyedropper pointer anywhere on the screen. The color next to the Eyedropper button dynamically changes to reflect the color that appears underneath the Eyedropper.
2. Do one of the following:
• To select the color of a single pixel, click the pixel.
• To sample the color average of a 3-by-3-pixel area, Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) the area.
• To sample a range of adjacent pixels, Shift-drag over the pixels.

Press the Escape key to cancel the Eyedropper.

To select a color with the Adobe Color Picker:

1. Click a feature's color button or box to display the Adobe Color Picker dialog box.
2. Select the component you want to use to display the color spectrum:
• H displays all hues in the color slider. Selecting a hue in the color slider displays the saturation and brightness range of the selected hue in the color field, with the saturation increasing from left to right and brightness increasing from bottom to top.
• S displays all hues in the color field with their maximum brightness at the top of the color field, decreasing to their minimum at the bottom. The color slider displays the color that's selected in the color field with its maximum saturation at the top of the slider and its minimum saturation at the bottom.
• B in the HSB section displays all hues in the color field with their maximum saturation at the top of the color field, decreasing to their minimum saturation at the bottom. The color slider displays the color that's selected in the color field with its maximum brightness at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness at the bottom.
• R displays the red color component in the color slider with its maximum brightness (255) at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness (0) at the bottom. When the color slider is set to minimum brightness, the color field displays colors created by the green and blue color components. Using the color slider to increase the red brightness mixes more red into the colors displayed in the color field.
• G displays the green color component in the color slider with its maximum brightness (255) at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness (0) at the bottom. When the color slider is set to minimum brightness, the color field displays colors created by the red and blue color components. Using the color slider to increase the green brightness mixes more green into the colors displayed in the color field.
• B in the RGB section displays the blue color component in the color slider with its maximum brightness (255) at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness (0) at the bottom. When the color slider is set to minimum brightness, the color field displays colors created by the green and red color components. Using the color slider to increase the blue brightness mixes more blue into the colors displayed in the color field.
3. Do any of the following:
• Drag the triangles along the color slider, or click inside the color slider to adjust the colors displayed in the spectrum.
• Click or drag inside the large square color spectrum to select a color. A circular marker indicates the color's position in the spectrum.

As you adjust the color using the color slider and color spectrum, the numeric values change to reflect the new color. The top rectangle to the right of the color slider displays the new color; the bottom rectangle displays the original color.

4. Enter color values in any of the text boxes:
• For HSB, specify hue (H) as an angle, from 0° to 360°, that corresponds to a location on the color wheel. Specify saturation (S) and brightness (B) as percentages.
• For RGB, specify component values from 0 to 255 (0 is black, and 255 is the pure color).
• For the # text box, enter a color value in hexidecimal form.