Xara X. The Color Editor (Continued)

The final Color Model is RGB Web/Hex. In this color model, RGB colors are expressed in Hexadecimal units, a numerical system that uses a combination of letters and numbers using two characters to represent 256 values.

Colors can be mixed using the sliders, in 3D mode, or by mixing the color in the HSV or RGB Color Model and then switching back to the Web/Hex Color Model.

Hexadecimal values appear in pairs of two, so the value listed on the left is Red 99, Blue 99 and Green cc or RGB 153, 153, 204.

Along with the Normal Color option in the Color Type drop down list, are several other types including Spot Color, Shade of, and Tint of Another Color, and Linked to Another Color.

Spot Colors, if you remember, are colors intended to be printed by a commercial printing company as specially mixed printing inks as opposed to colors mixed with the four process printing colors CMYK. You can create, or change any color to a Spot Color by selecting Spot Color in the Color Type drop down list.

A warning screen will appear to inform you that spot colors need to be named. Don't be alarmed. Just say OK. In the New Named Color dialog, name your color, and press Create. The new spot color will appear in the on-screen palette, and the Choose Color to Edit drop down list, as a circle. It will also appear in the Color Gallery on the Infobar.

You can also opt to make your new named color a Shade (darker) or a Tint (lighter) of an existing spot color by checking the Make the Color a Shade of: check box.

If you chose Make the Color a Shade of: the Color Editor displays the Shade of Another Color configuration. The X on the left side of the color mixing window represents the original spot color for which you are now creating a Shade (usually a darker version).

Shades are different from Tints (covered in the next section), in that they are edited in terms of both Saturation and Value. Moving the cross hair slider to the right decreases the amount of Saturation until the color looses all color and becomes a shade of gray when it is on the far right.

Moving the cross hair slider up and down increases or decreases the Value or amount of light and dark in a color.

The two settings are indicated in the Shade percentage boxes at the bottom of the Color Editor. As they are unnamed, or covered in the Help menu, for the record, the first box is Saturation % and the second is Value %.

Tints are lighter versions of a color and only have one edit control.

The slider in the gradient filled edit window begins with white on the left and increases to 100% of the primary color on the far right.

You can use the slider, and/or enter a percentage in the Tint: percentage text entry box.

Tints are frequently used with spot colors to achieve the appearance of more colors.

The final option in the Color Type drop down list is Linked to Another Color. Linked colors are linked to another color.

Linked colors can "inherit" any two out of three attributes: Hue, Value, or Saturation. The three Inherit: check boxes at the bottom of the menu determine which attributes the new color will inherit. In this case the new color will inherit Value (lightness or darkness) and Saturation (amount of color). So any new color we create can have a different Hue but the same Saturation and Value.

The 3D check box by the way should be grayed out as it does nothing with Inherited Spot Colors.