Tonight I've been playing with the color picker,trying to learn to use it. No matter what I try, I can never get the color I want. Tried the Windows color picker too, what a joke, it took me two minutes to see that it's worse. Let's say for example I'm looking for a certain shade of any color. I can never seem to get it just right. It may look pretty close in the little square in the color picker, but if use it in a fill layer it's always too yellow, or too rosy, or too dark, too light or too something else.

There has to be an easier way to get the color you want than this time consuming trial and error method. The numbers mean little to me, I know the color wheel, but not the numbering method. I can envision that learning to get the color one wants by using the numbers could take eons. I need a tutorial, or a more precise color picker. Help please.

alpha

Hi Alpha,

I know of no way other than trial and error. What I will do is cut out a selection which has the color I am attempting to match right on the edge of the selection; Ctrl-J puts that selection on a layer. I then insert a blank layer below that selection. Click with your eyedropper to make the desired color your foreground color and then use the Paint Bucket to fill the blank layer. Then you just look at it.

ColorPicker.jpg (79.18 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

I am attempting to get the yellow right at the point of the arrow. As you can see, I'm not quite there. Now I just keep clicking again with the eyedropper, a click should slightly change the foreground color, refill with the paint bucket. Once you have the match you want, write down the color code numbers. Now you can delete the first two layers, don't need them anymore.

Maybe somebody else will come along and we both can learn an easier way

Rusty

Alpha, I know it can be exsaperating trying to get just the right color. I usually give up and go with the closest. But in searching for some answers for you I found this site. It gives you the numbers for just about every color you can imagine. See if there is some help for you there. You click on each section at the top and then it opens up to all the colors in that range. It is quite extensive.

http://www.december.com/html/spec/color1.html

Thanks Rusty for the quick response. Your method makes more sense than trying to find the color almost by accident in the color picker, which is what I've been doing.


alpha

Thanks Suzi for that link. I have bookmarked it. I had googled and found a couple of similar sites earlier, but they were not as well laid out and complete as this one seems to be.

alpha

Alpha,

One other thing to do is change the Point Sample Size to 3x3 - the default is Point Sample, which is pretty much 1 pixel.

The place to click is here

Sampler.jpg (55.62 KiB) Viewed 1173 times

When I am trying to match a specific color I use the eyedropper tool. It will get you very close to the color you want most of the time. IF you need to go a little darker or lighter than what you have selected with the eye droper , just click on the color and then use the color picker to darken or lighten. That is what I do.
Tina B

Thanks John and Tina for the responses to my question.

John, my version of PSE is older than yours, and I apparently don't have a way to change the point sample size. At least I haven't found one anyway. I've discovered that sometimes when I can't find something I later stumble on it in another spot in my version. I'll keep my eyes open, and search help too.

Tina, when I first started experimenting last night I was trying to make a new background layer of a solid color, so there was nothing to click on to copy the color. Now I realize I need to pull up something with the color I want, so I can pick it with the eyedropper, instead of trying to locate it in the color picker. Some things are so simple I can't figure them out, it seems, for trying to make them complicated.

alpha

Edit: Ten minutes later. I found how to change the point sample size, and have changed it to 3x3.

Thanks, John,
I had forgotten all about the ability to change the sample size. Sure makes it a lot easier when using trial and error to try to zero into a match as I described above.

Rusty