Foreground and Background Colors

The two square overlapping boxes that appear toward the bottom of your Tools palette are the foreground and background colors (Figure 1.20). The top box is the foreground color; it determines which color will be used when you use any of the painting tools. To change the foreground color, click it once. (This will bring up a standard Color Picker.) The bottom box is the background color; it's used when you're erasing the background image or when you increase the size of your document by using Image > Canvas Size. When you use the Gradient tool with default settings, your gradient will start with the foreground color and end with the background color. You can swap the foreground and background colors by clicking the small curved arrows next to them in the Tools palette (or pressing the X key on your keyboard). You can also reset the colors to their default settings (black/white) by clicking the small squares in the lower-left corner of that same area. (Pressing D does the same thing.)

CMYK colors are meant to be printed (which involves ink), whereas RGB colors (which involve light) are meant for multimedia. Due to impurities in CMYK inks, you can't accurately reproduce every color you see on your screen. The Proof Colors command is accurate only when you have the proper settings specified in the View > Proof Setup menu. The default setting indicates what your image will look like when converted to CMYK mode.