Choose and manage colors in Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro lets you quickly choose colors for different tools, color adjustments, or effects using the color pickers that appear when you click any color well in Pixelmator Pro. Using the color picker, you can quickly select a color using the color square or hue slider, choose colors by specific RGB values, choose from beautiful color palette collections, save your custom colors or color collections, and more. And, you can also easily access the Colors window.

Color pickers in tools, adjustments, and effects

The top section of the color picker features an eyedropper for picking colors from the image, the color square with a hue slider for choosing custom colors, and the HEX and RGB color code fields for entering specific color values. In the Swatches section, you can choose a color from the existing color palettes or reuse some of your recently selected colors.

How to use the color picker

1. To turn on the color picker, click any color well in Pixelmator Pro tools, adjustments, or effects, or click the color picker in the toolbar.

2. Do any of the following:

   • Find the value of a color: Click the eyedropper , then hover the pointer over a color to see its value. The color value changes as you move from one color to another on the canvas. To pick a color, simply click it.

   • Choose a color: You can choose a color from the list of available color palettes or use the hue slider and the color field to pick it manually. The color picker uses the HSB-based (hue, saturation, brightness) color model, so to choose a color, you'd typically drag the hue slider first, then specify its saturation and brightness in the color field above. You can also manually enter HEX or RGB values to choose a specific color.

   • Manage the color palettes: Click the Color Palettes pop-up menu to browse your existing palettes or click the adjacent More menu to remove, rename, and add new palettes.

   • Save colors to use again: In the list of color swatches, click Add or More and choose Add Preset in the menu that appears. This adds your currently selected color to the currently selected color palette. You can also drag a swatch directly from the recently selected colors to the list of color swatches.

💡 Tip: To quickly fill an image, drag the color you want from the color well in the toolbar or any color well in Pixelmator Pro onto any object, shape, or selection in your image.

When working with gradients, click any of the color stops to open the color picker.

Save, redefine, or remove color swatches

Color swatches are individual colors that comprise color palettes or color collections.

• Save a new color swatch: When you have a color selected, in the Color Palettes pop-up menu, choose a palette where you'd like to save it, then click Add or click More and choose Add Preset in the menu that appears.

• Redefine a color swatch: If you'd like to replace the color of an existing color swatch with your currently selected color, you can redefine it. Control ⌃ – click a color swatch, then choose Redefine in the menu that appears.

• Remove a color swatch: Control ⌃ – click a color swatch, then select Remove in the menu that appears.

💡 Tip: To move or save a color to a different color palette, you can select the color swatch first, then open the palette you want and drag the color swatch to the list of swatches there.

Create, rename, or remove color palettes

1. Click More next to the Color Palettes pop-up menu.

2. Do any of the following:

   • Create a color palette: Choose New Collection to create an empty new color palette.

   • Rename a color palette: Choose Rename to give your collection of swatches a different name.

   • Remove a color palette: Choose Remove to delete a color palette.

Switch between foreground and background colors

Foreground and background colors are the two primary colors Pixelmator Pro will use when working with brushes, fill tools, and fill effects. By default, the foreground color is black and the background color is white. So, for example, if you paint on a layer with a brush or fill it with the foreground color, it will turn black, and if you switch to the secondary — background color — a white color will be used instead. You can change the foreground and background colors to any colors you want.

To switch between foreground and background colors, do one of the following:

• Press X on your keyboard.

• Click the switch arrow next to the color well .

To reset foreground and background colors to black and white press the D key on your keyboard.

Use the Color Picker tool

The Color Picker tool is a standalone tool that offers additional options for choosing and managing colors in Pixelmator Pro. In the Color Picker tool options, you can set how all color pickers in Pixelmator Pro sample colors and what information they display.

1. Choose the Color Picker tool by doing one of the following:

   • Click the Color Picker tool in the Tools sidebar.

   • Choose Tools > Color Picker from the Tools menu at the top of your screen.

   • Press I on your keyboard.

2. Customize the tool:

   • Adjust the color picker sample size: "1 point sample" selects color from a single pixel in an image. You can also choose "3 by 3 average" or "5 by 5 average" to read the average value of the area within the adjacent 3 by 3 or 5 by 5 pixels.

   • Choose the color picker color values: Under Color Code, choose "RGB" to use RGB codes when displaying color values, or "HEX" to use the web-safe HEX codes.

   • Show color names: Select the "Show closest color name" checkbox to show a color name closest to the picked color value, or deselect to hide it.

3. Click anywhere in your image to pick a color.

📘 Note: Pixelmator Pro remembers the settings you choose, the swatches you add, or the color palettes you create, so you can work with the same settings and colors across multiple documents.

Use the Colors window

The Colors window in Pixelmator Pro lets you access the system color palettes, and all the macOS-native color pickers such as the color wheel, sliders, and pencils.

The Colors window has four sections: the different color pickers at the top (color wheel, color sliders, color palettes, image palettes, and pencils); the active color picker in the middle; the large color swatch in the lower-left to show the currently selected color; the eyedropper for picking colors; and the row of boxes to pick or save new color swatches.

1. To open the Colors window, do one of the following:

   • Click in the color picker popover.

   • Choose View > Show Colors (from the View menu at the top of your screen).

   • Press Shift ⇧ + Command ⌘ + C on your keyboard.

2. Do any of the following:

   • Choose a color for a selected text, shape, color adjustment, or effect: Click the color picker tab at the top of the Colors window, then choose a color. You can specify a more precise color by using the sliders or entering values.

   • Pick a color: Click the eyedropper, then click anywhere on the computer screen to choose a color.

   • Save colors to use again: At the bottom of the Colors window, drag the color from the larger color swatch on the left to an empty well on the right. To remove a color, drag it to the Trash in the Dock. Colors saved to the color swatches library remain accessible across applications and restarts.

❗Important: Colors in the color wells update based on the tool or the layer selected, so if you select a color for one tool, the colors don't change for others (except for the painting tools). This means that if you leave the Colors window open for one tool, and select another object in the canvas, clicking colors in the already open Colors window does not change the newly selected object.