At the top of the Colors panel, select the Color Palettes tab.
(Optional) To limit your color options to a specific color profile, click the gear icon (to the right of the drop-down menu) to see color profile options related to the color value system you selected.If you select the CMYK Sliders option, you see Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black sliders.
If you select the RGB Sliders option, you see Red, Green, and Blue sliders plus the color’s Hex Color number (also called a hexadecimal value). If you select the Gray Scale Slider option, you see a Brightness slider as well as five grayscale preset values. For example, if you know your document needs to use an HSB value of Hue 21, Saturation 80, and Brightness 100, you can type those values in the boxes, as shown in the following figure.
CMYK: On Mac OS X only, you find sliders for setting CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) color values, a system used in professional printing, where colors are specified using percentages of four basic ink colors.Grayscale: When you want a pure gray (without any color undertones), check out the grayscale slider.Because the saturation value has its own slider, this method is especially intuitive if you want a desaturated color. HSB: HSB is another system used to specify on-screen colors, but in this case, you set hue, saturation, and brightness values.These values mix to create the color you see in the active color well. Use a slider to specify a red, green, and blue value. RGB: RGB colors are traditionally used to specify on-screen colors.The Colors panel has sliders that enable you to enter precise color values, using any of the following methods: (Optional) To adjust the color’s brightness, drag the brightness slider (to the right of the color wheel) or type a percentage in the box above the slider.Ĭhoosing colors precisely with RGB, HSB, Grayscale, or CMYK sliders.The color you select appears in the active color well.
To select a color, click a color hue on the color wheel.The following steps walk you through the color wheel options: You might want to use the color wheel picker to make a rough color choice, and then use one of the color slider pickers to fine-tune your color. Tip: You can click and drag the cursor around the color wheel to see a dynamic preview of the selected color in the active color well. The callouts in the following figure correspond to the numbers in the preceding list. As the Opacity percentage decreases, the color becomes more transparent. When the Opacity is set to 100%, the color is opaque. Opacity slider: This slider changes your color's opacity, or how transparent the color is.Note that you can no longer use this palette as a library for material textures. If you need to see more wells, click and drag the size handle at the bottom of the Colors panel to expand the number of visible color wells. Dropping a new color over an existing color replaces the color.