Colour Picker

[Barry Beckham]

When the colour picker is selected, in my case to change the colour of a rectangle, we have a large number of choices from three different styles of picker. Often when doing presentation work, the best colour for text or backgrounds can often be one cloned from the image colours itself. There is a certain visual harmony retained when we do that

When the colour picker window is selected (any of the three styles) we have an eye dropper tool to enable us to do exactly what I ask, but it doesn't work quite right. If you click the eye dropper tool and move off the Choose Colour Window, the eye dropper cannot select a colour from the image itself (see attached)

If the eye dropper is clicked and while holding the left mouse down, it's dragged off the panel, you can select a colour from the image. (keeping my Wacom graphics pen pressed to the pad surface in my case)

Given that it sort of works OK, it would be a nice touch if when the colour sampler tool is selected with one click, it can be moved anywhere on the screen and still function. Without the need to hold down the left mouse or keep the pen hard on the tablet surface. One false move and option to sample from the image is lost and you have to return to the sampler tool for a second go.

[cjdnzl]

Hello Barry,

I just had a play with Photoshop CS2 (being a bit impecunious I haven't afforded a later version!). With an image on the screen of a park in town with a church tower in the background, I select the Type Tool, and on the top line of the screen I get the color patch that the type will use. Clicking on the patch opens the Color Picker window and gives me an eyedropper cursor that I can place anywhere on the screen. I placed the cursor on the church tower to get a brick tone, which immediately changes the gradated color in the picker window and puts a small circle in the window to indicate where the selected tone sits in the gradated area. Now, if I type text, it appears in the selected color, and for good measure I selected an ares on the grass foreground with the marquee tool, and filled the rectangle with the same brick color.

As far as I can see this all works exactly as expected. See images below:

Regards,

Colin

[Barry Beckham]

Colin

Yes, I agree it all works fine in Photoshop, but not in PTE. Well, not quite as well. You would expect to be able to click the eye dropper in PTE and then move about the image as you have demonstrated in Photoshop, which was my point. However, as soon as you move off the colour picker in PTE the eye dropper is lost. With Slide Styles now about to be launched and with the opportunity to add edge effects in almost any colour we want, being able to select colour from an image should be easy in my view and it's what I am suggesting.

I don't use a mouse so I am assuming that if you tried the same thing in the Objects and Animation screen, you would NOT get the same result as you have with Photoshop. Please try it just in case my assumption is wrong.

As I click on the eye dropper in the Objects and Animation screen it appears to select it, but it doesn't. Move off the window to the image and it's lost. Click and hold the left mouse and it does, but how many would think of doing that?

Apart from me

[cjdnzl]

Colin

Yes, I agree it all works fine in Photoshop, but not in PTE. Well, not quite as well. You would expect to be able to click the eye dropper in PTE and then move about the image as you have demonstrated in Photoshop, which was my point. However, as soon as you move off the colour picker in PTE the eye dropper is lost. With Slide Styles now about to be launched and with the opportunity to add edge effects in almost any colour we want, being able to select colour from an image should be easy in my view and it's what I am suggesting.

I don't use a mouse so I am assuming that if you tried the same thing in the Objects and Animation screen, you would NOT get the same result as you have with Photoshop. Please try it just in case my assumption is wrong.

As I click on the eye dropper in the Objects and Animation screen it appears to select it, but it doesn't. Move off the window to the image and it's lost. Click and hold the left mouse and it does, but how many would think of doing that?

Apart from me

Aaahh Barry,

Nowhere in your original post did you mention that you were working in PTE, and the term Color Picker led me to think you were talking about Photoshop.

So my post was irrelevant, apologies for getting that wrong.

In hindsight, I ahould have guessed your knowledge of PS was better than I surmised, but I thought that maybe CS6 or the cloud version might work differently.

I'll get back under my rock now,

Regards,

Colin

[Barry Beckham]

Colin

No problem, it's hard sometimes to convey what's in your mind with typed words, when the subject is a bit technical. The other day I was trying to express something and wondered if a short video would be better :blink:/>

[PGA]

Barry,

I confirm that, to use the Eye Dropper in the O&A window in PTE v8 beta 3, you have to keep the left-click held down. To clarify the situation in Photoshop (Elements 11 in my case), when the Colour Picker tool is selected the pointer icon doesn't immediately change to the eye-dropper icon. This appears only after you have moved the mouse pointer over the actual image area or the pop-up window of the Colour Picker. From then on the pointer remains as the eye-dropper anywhere within the available image area (i.e. including the grey background around the actual image).

regards,

Peter

[Barry Beckham]

I would suggest that is what we want in PTE and as we are so close (ie having to hold the left mouse) perhaps its not so hard to just be able to click the sampler and move anywhere on the screen your in and sample a colour.