Colour panel functionality

[Rob123456789]

IU'm converting from Photoshop and struggling to understand something - In the colour panel, there are 2 colour circles which appear to correspond to a 'fill' colour, and a 'stroke' colour - whereas in Photoshop they relate to Foreground and Background colours. Does Affinity Photo have a concept of Foreground and Background colour or not? In Photoshop I can create a gradient from the foreground colour to the background colour - how do I do the equilavent in Affinity Photo? I used the colour dropper tool to select 2 colours in a photo, but as soon as I switch to the gradient tool I don't seem to be able to use the colours I picked, as a white gradient fills the entire layer and I cannot find an option to go from Fill to Stroke colour.

 

[R C-R]

The two color circles do double duty as stroke & fill or Color 1/foreground & Color 2/background, depending on context.

 

To set gradient colors, click on any of the stops (the circles that appear when the Gradient tool is selected) & set the color of that stop in the Color panel.

[toltec]

I found that a bit confusing too.

 

The bottom right well is the Primary well, the top left well is the Secondary well. For several operations, like fills, knowing the correct name matters because you have the choice of filling with the "Primary" or "Secondary" colour. The active colour (the one you are about to paint with) is 'on top' and overlaps the other well slightly.

 

For vector drawing and shapes, the top left well becomes the "stroke" (or line) colour and the bottom right well becomes the "fill" colour.

 

The gradients are largely controlled by the Gradient tool. 

 

  

drag across something with the tool and a gradient will be applied with a control line. click on the handle at either end of the line and set a colour. 

 

 

To create gradients to save in the Swatches panel. It is easier to do if you draw a rectangle or some sort of shape,

Select the gradients swatch in the Swatches panel first and drag the Gradient tool across the shape.

 on the Context toolbar, click on fill

 

brings up this panel

In this example, the left hand handle is selected, (larger) click on the swatch (outlined) and set a colour. Click on the right handle and do the same thing.

You can set mid points too, click on the line to set a new handle with a different colour etc. The little vertical line in the middle, sets the transition between the colours.

as you can see. You can also select the type of gradient from here, linear, radial etc.

 

 

To save it to the swatches panel right click on the shape and click Add to Swatches > From fill.

 

Note, make sure none of the gradient handles is selected or it just adds the handle colour, not the gradient. In fact, it's probably easier to select the Move tool first, before right clicking.

Here you can see the new gradient saved into the gradient swatch. Which also shows where you go to select the gradient swatch category.

 

Now just click on an object to apply the gradient and select the gradient tool to edit.

 

It is a good idea to make a batch of fills and save them the same way. The choice of ready made fills is, er, sparse !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lepr]

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[R C-R]

An alternative to saving gradients to a palette is to create a Gradient Map adjustment, set the colors as you want, & save that as a preset. Then, with the Adjustments Studio panel open, you can click on the Gradient Map section & choose the preset from there.

[Mister Phil]

I'm having trouble when I try and fill with secondary colour.

In PS I'm used to making a selection then using CMD BACKSPACE to fill with the background colour.

I've set the shortcuts up which work well but when I try to switch colours 'X' they switch in the palette but when I fill it's still with the same colour…