Colour picking

[John Hod]

Somewhere, I've seen a way to select a colour from another program for use withing Affinity Photo, for example a swatch held on my desktop.  Can anyone help with how this can be done?

 

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.
Drag from the Colour Picker (little eyedropper in the Colour Panel or the Swatches Panel) to the pixel of the colour you want to use, then release the mouse button and click the Colour Picker to use the colour that’s been chosen. See attached video.

[John Hod]

Thank you for the speedy response.  I had convinced myself it was more confusing that that 😄

[GarryP]

You’re welcome.
The Colour Picker Tool on the Toolbar does pretty much the same sort of thing but I think it only works within the document canvas (I’ve never been able to get it to work outside of the canvas).

[Murfee]

7 minutes ago, GarryP said:

(I’ve never been able to get it to work outside of the canvas)

It is a tricky one, for some reason you need to click on the canvas then drag to outside.

[GarryP]

Ah, that’s the trick. Thanks for that.
I notice that you have to choose the pixel inside the little box and not the pixel in the cross-hairs (sometimes they’re in different places).
And unchecking “Apply To Selection” makes it work in a similar way – with regard to not immediately applying the colour – to the other eyedropper.

[John Hod]

I did try the picker in the tool bar, before posting.  Maybe that's why I thought it was something more confusing that I needed to do.

 

[GarryP]

Makes sense. I would never have tried to click-drag to get a colour outside of the canvas before I was told that’s what I could do.