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Xara X. The Color Editor (Continued)

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	The Choose Color to Edit drop down list at the top of the Color Editor contains a list of Xara's 24 Primary Colors and Grayscale values as well as all Named colors currently used in your document, any Web Browser colors used, and any Spot Colors used. Spot Colors are displayed as circular swatches while Named and Web Browser colors share a square color swatch. Selecting any of these colors or grayscale values, changes the color in the editor (and on the selected object) to this color which you can then edit as needed. If you want to mix a version of Yellow Orange, select Yellow Orange and then modify the color. If you name your new color, the color will be placed at the end of the Named colors on the screen palette. It will also appear in the Choose Color to Edit drop down list and the Color Gallery on the Infobar. RGB and CMYK editing. If you are creating images and documents for commercial printing, you will want to specify your colors in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black percentages). If you are creating images for the Web, you will want to specify color in RGB (Red, Green and Blue). To edit in either of these modes, select from the Color Models drop down list. While RGB color can be expressed in either 0-255 or 0-100% (your editor prefers 0-255, by the way), CMYK values are always expressed in Percent. If you need to change from one color unit display to the other, open the Page Options dialog, (Utilities > Options > Units and change the Color Units: to either Percent or 0-255. When you let your cursor rest for a moment over any color on the screen palette, a small rectangle appears with the color values for which Color Units you have specified. Spot Colors and Named Colors display their individual names. Editing RGB colors can be done in either RGB or Hexadecimal. If you need the Hexadecimal version of a color then select RGB WEB/HEX Color Model from the Color Model drop down list. The difference is RGB values are displayed individually for each color, hence three text entry boxes, while HEX colors are displayed in one Hexadecimal unit which is actually made up of three pairs of Hexadecimal units. So the pale gray green shown here, RGB 153, 204, 153 expressed in Hexadecimal is 99cc99. The two 99s are 153 and the cc equals 204. In either case you can mix your colors by moving the sliders, or you can enter the RGB values or Hexadecimal value in the text entry boxes.

Shown here is the Hexadecimal Color Model . If you need to specify certain colors for your web page in Hexadecimal, use this color model.

You can switch back and forth from one color model to another and the color will change its unit values accordingly. For example, Cyan in CMYK is C=100%, M,Y,K=0. In RGB it's 0, 255, 255, in Hexadecimal it's 00ffff, and in HSV it's 180, 255, 255.

If you're mathematically inclined, you may be more at home mixing colors in 3D. In RGB or CMYK Color Model mode, checking the 3D check box switches from the three sliders to the 3D display shown here. Moving the small double arrow slider (in the lower right) diagonally adds more amounts of either Red, Green or Blue depending upon which color is currently specified.

The small circular arrow (to the left of the Original Color and Current Color swatches) cycles the starting color on the 3D slider between Red, Green and Blue. If the slider is set to Red, then the square blends from Blue to green. As you move the slider diagonally upwards, Red is added to the Green and Blue.

In addition the cross hair can be moved at any time to select a color from the current display.

If you start at RGB 0, 0, 0, the cross hair will be in the lower left which is solid black. As you move the diagonal slider upwards, if Red is the slider color, Red will advance to 255 Red while the Green and Blue components will remain at 0. So all values mixed will be values of Red from 0 to 255. If you toggle through Red, Green and Blue, sliding each color to the top left, the cross hairs will now be in the top right at pure white. Confusing? I think so.