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Eye dropper tool


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This is an awesome addition to 1.5, I'm so glad it's finally here! It's one of those things I've had to get on with but colour picking has always been a chore in affinity. Now no longer thankfully!

 

As always I have some suggestions for this new tool:

  • I would vote "I" for the shortcut, it's the one everyone knows, but I'm sure you've heard that a dozen times this week
  • I'd say, swap the dropper cursor over for a crosshair for more accurate picking.
  • A modifier (or straight up toggle) to bring up the magnifying loupe would be killer, we've had it up until now with the current method, it'd be a shame for the dedicated tool to be less functional.
  • COLOUR GATHERING! Anyone who has used xScope will know this one, but having a modifier for click to add the colour under the loupe to the currently open palette(Or straight to the document palette) would be aces! Super aces in fact. Mega fast palette building FTW.

As always, keep up the sterling work.

 

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Another observation: It is possible to apply a sampled colour to selected objects with one click. But oddly the selection frames of the aforementioned selected objects disappear as soon as the eyedropper tool is selected. Looks like a bug to me.

 

Also, wouldn’t it be a good idea having a modifier key for temporary switching to the selection tool in order to apply sampled colour to different objects?

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Or better yet, an indicator of the currently sampled colour and the behaviour could simply apply the style once, with an option to continue applying this style on subsequent clicks, via a modifier, so you can grab one thing and apply it to a ton without switching tools or simply grab one thing, apply, grab another and so on.

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Hey thanks for pointing out the improvements... I've been continuing to use the eyedropper the old tedious way.

 

1 ) You can set the shortcut to "i" if you'd like.

3 ) CMD toggles over to the loupe.... you just have to move the mouse slightly. (should probably come right up though)

And the loupe gives you a one px sample so I guess thats as good as a crosshair ;) .

Edit: actually you don't need the modifier at all. Just move the mouse a touch.

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I guess I'm missing something, because the eyedropper seems to work the same way as it did: backward.

 

In any other color picker, you pick the eyedropper tool, then use it to click on a color somewhere, and the chosen color is moved into a color well. Then you can select objects and click on the color well to change their color.

 

Affinity does exactly the opposite. Why?

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Hello,

 

I don't understand how to pick a colour from an existing object and then apply it to a different object using only shortcuts.

My problem is that using cmd+option+click picks the colour but as soon as I click to select an object to colour the colour switches to the selected object's colour...

If I use option to pick a colour it only changes the eyedropper colour, Is there a shortcut to apply it to another object?

Can someone help?

 

Thanks

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  • Staff

I guess I'm missing something, because the eyedropper seems to work the same way as it did: backward.

 

In any other color picker, you pick the eyedropper tool, then use it to click on a color somewhere, and the chosen color is moved into a color well. Then you can select objects and click on the color well to change their color.

 

Affinity does exactly the opposite. Why?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by opposite.

 

Here is how it is working for me:

- In the vector persona.

- Click on the 'Colour Picker Tool' in the tool panel on the left side.

- The mouse icon is now a pipette.

- Click on an object to retrieve it's colour.

- The colour well in the Colour panel will now change to your chosen colour.

- Click on the 'Select Tool' in the tool panel on the left side.

- Select a new object that you wish to apply the colour to.

- Click on the colour well in the Colour panel to apply picked colour.

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  • Staff

Hello,

 

I don't understand how to pick a colour from an existing object and then apply it to a different object using only shortcuts.

My problem is that using cmd+option+click picks the colour but as soon as I click to select an object to colour the colour switches to the selected object's colour...

If I use option to pick a colour it only changes the eyedropper colour, Is there a shortcut to apply it to another object?

Can someone help?

 

Thanks

 

Which Persona, and which Tool are you in?

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@Stokestack

 

It's not exactly backward.

 

Whenever the colour picker appears in a panel or dialog, you must drag from the icon out to the colour. Clicking on the icon in a panel or dialog will apply the colour in the picker's colour 'well'.

 

Currently, the only way to 'click to pick' a colour is by using the Colour Picker Tool from the Tools panel.

 

Colour picking has been updated in the Help to reflect the way colour sampling works in Affinity Designer 1.5 Beta.

 

Thanks.

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The "Apply to selection" option would be more obvious if the selected object displays as being selected. Currently when you select an object then click on the colour picker tool the objects bounding box disappears. It's still selected but there is no user feedback as the bounds do not appear...

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The "Apply to selection" option would be more obvious if the selected object displays as being selected.

 

+1

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The "Apply to selection" option would be more obvious if the selected object displays as being selected. Currently when you select an object then click on the colour picker tool the objects bounding box disappears. It's still selected but there is no user feedback as the bounds do not appear...

 

 

Looks like a bug to me (see post #6).

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@Stokestack

 

It's not exactly backward.

 

Whenever the colour picker appears in a panel or dialog, you must drag from the icon out to the colour. Clicking on the icon in a panel or dialog will apply the colour in the picker's colour 'well'.

 

 

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I don't recall any precedent for having to drag from a color picker icon to sample a color.  Or drag from any other tool's icon to use it, for that matter. There may be one, but this seems like a non-intuitive action.  Typically you click on the eyedropper, and then you're in color-picking mode.  Just like any other tool: Once you click it, it becomes the active tool that you're using. Currently, if you do somehow stumble upon the action of dragging the eyedropper icon or the little circular well, you find that they do exactly the same thing, as does clicking on either one of them. Curious.

 

Another odd thing about the picker: It doesn't set the current color or the color of the selected object; it merely puts the color into this ancillary color well that then must be clicked again to apply it. Normally, a color picker presents several means of choosing a color and making it the currently active color.  If I select an object, click on its Fill color in the toolbar and sample a color, I expect the object's fill to change to that color (and for that color to be the active one in the Fill color well).

 

I was going to call out Designer's use of this ancillary well as a bad design; but thinking it through, I can see how it's convenient to retain the last-picked color in that well, so when you select the next object and its Fill color is made the "current" color, you still have the previously sampled color available in the 'last-sampled" well.

 

Uh... except you don't. The last-sampled color always goes to black when you change objects. Is that a bug? Screen grab attached.

 

 

sampleDiscarded.mov

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How about Caps Lock for the Loupe toggle ? Also a keyboard equivalent for sampling the color and adding it to the palette as a Global color would be dandy as well :)

 

This is an awesome addition to 1.5, I'm so glad it's finally here! It's one of those things I've had to get on with but colour picking has always been a chore in affinity. Now no longer thankfully!

 

As always I have some suggestions for this new tool:

  • I would vote "I" for the shortcut, it's the one everyone knows, but I'm sure you've heard that a dozen times this week
  • I'd say, swap the dropper cursor over for a crosshair for more accurate picking.
  • A modifier (or straight up toggle) to bring up the magnifying loupe would be killer, we've had it up until now with the current method, it'd be a shame for the dedicated tool to be less functional.
  • COLOUR GATHERING! Anyone who has used xScope will know this one, but having a modifier for click to add the colour under the loupe to the currently open palette(Or straight to the document palette) would be aces! Super aces in fact. Mega fast palette building FTW.

As always, keep up the sterling work.

2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6

2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17

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Since we have the new color pick in place I'm wondering what is the purpose of keeping the old one?

 

Also... is that possible to pick a gradient color with the same tool as well?

 

Reminous

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