The Color Palette
To select the color you’re working with, you use the Color Palette. The Color Palette is a part of the main Paint window, and looks like this:
The box on the left side shows the active colors.
The top, overlapping rectangle (currently black) is the foreground color. The foreground color is the color that will be used by the following Tools: Text, Pencil, Paintbrush, Airbrush, Fill, Shapes, Line, and Curve. To change the foreground color, click on the desired color in the Color Palette with the left button on your mouse.You might think that the selection of colors available on this color palette is rather limited, and you’d be right. In order to gain access to a greater variety of colors, you’ll want to use the Color Picker. We’ll go over this when we talk about the Colors Menu.The bottom rectangle is the background color. The background color is the default color of any new image that you create. When you use the Eraser tool, the Eraser turns whatever you erase back to the background color. To change the background color, click on the desired color in the Color Palette with the right button on your mouse. Usually, you’ll want to leave the background color alone, but occasionally you may want to make it some color other than white.
Tip: The background is also a secondary color for certain tools, such as the shapes tools. If you set the tool options for the shapes to draw filled shapes, the fill color will be the background color.
Tip: The background color can also be used by the tools if you draw using the right button on the mouse instead of the left button. That way, you can switch quickly between two colors that you are using frequently.