The Appeal of the Palette

Of all the electronic metaphors for traditional artisan tools, none is quite as elegant as the palette. Even if you don’t know which end of the paintbrush to use, you surely have an image in your mind of the painter, brush in one hand, palette in the other. The palette has all of those pretty little dots, each a different color. Each painting might use its own palette with an entirely new set of colors.

And so it is for CorelDRAW users, just not with the same tactile charm and allure. On the electronic side, a palette is a set of colors available for use on objects in a drawing. Typically, colors in a palette have a common bond, and that bond could be hues and shades (like a gray palette), type of usage (like a palette of eye or hair colors), or anticipated output (like a palette for Internet graphics).

While the science of palettes runs deep, you might glean all you need to know if you keep in mind the image of a traditional palette. There is really only one other paradigm that you need to understand...

The Concept of the Color Model

DRAW defines a color model as different from a color palette. While a palette has a fixed number of specific colors associated with it, a color model represents a formula used to produce colors. Usually millions of colors.

The most obvious example is the CMYK color model, used for identifying colors in traditional color printing. An exhaustive range of colors exists by mixing the right percentages of the four colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. K is for black rather than B, so that it’s not confused with blue (which is actually not a primary color but a mixture of cyan and magenta). DRAW’s default color palette, coreldrw.cpl, is based on the CMYK color model.

Okay, let’s say that again, because these are important distinctions. There is a palette called coreldrw.cpl (all palettes have .cpl extensions). It consists of exactly 100 colors, and they all have names, such as Navy Blue, Deep Purple, Pale Yellow, Dusty Rose, etc. The model on which this palette is based is the CMYK color model, which is capable of producing millions of individual colors.

There are four reasons why coreldraw.cpl is used so extensively:

•  As the default palette, it is the one that DRAW starts with, and many users feel no need to switch to a different one.

•  Its color choices are very friendly, as it offers shades of gray in 10-percent increments, all of the standard rainbow colors (blue, red, green, orange, violet, etc.), the four process colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), and a host of other colors that look pleasing to the eye.

•  Because it’s based on the CMYK color model, you can check a color’s components in a swatch book, like the TruMatch Color Finder.

•  And it is a custom palette, meaning that you can add colors to it, remove colors from it, and edit colors in it.

If painters need a color that is not on their palettes, they can reach for other paints or they can mix two colors from their palette to create a new color. In DRAW, the metaphors for those two actions are:

•  Open a different palette

•  Go to the Select Color dialog or docker and mix a color

Remember, regardless of what palette is on screen, you can always go to the dialogs or the docker to mix or choose another color. And if you find a color that you want to use regularly, you can add it to your custom palette, using the Palette Editor shown in Figure 6.9. You can also assign your own name to a color. You can choose a technical name that describes the composition of the color, such as “C13M12Y88;” or one that is more descriptive of the color’s use; or even, as in this case, one that reflects your opinion of it. Whatever name you choose will appear in the preview box on DRAW’s status bar when you select an object that uses that color.

FIGURE 6.9  Naming colors on a custom palette is easy, helpful, and if you have a good imagination, a creative outlet...

If you are producing color-separated work, you should work with a palette that uses the CMYK color model, or choose CMYK-derived colors from the dialogs or docker. If you use a different model, DRAW will convert your color choices to CMYK anyway when you make separations. It’s anybody’s guess whether the conversion will be to your liking, so it’s best to start with CMYK colors for your four-color printed work.

The other color model that you might use regularly is the RGB color model for work that is destined to remain on screen. The obvious application today is the Web site, and indeed, the two palettes for creating Web graphics, the Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer palettes, are based on the RGB color model. All light sources transmit colors as components of red, green, and blue, and computer monitors are certainly light sources.

	NOTE For more detail on these and all of the other color models, consult the on-line Help where there are numerous explanations. Select Find and search for color, model, CMYK, or RGB.

Using Custom Palettes

Although most users rarely change from the default coreldrw.cpl palette, the program ships with several other palettes. To use a different palette as your default, go to Window Ø Color Palette and choose one from the flyout menu. From that same menu, you can:

•  Open the Color Palette Browser, which might make locating and choosing a palette easier

•  Create a new palette, based on the color in your drawing or in selected objects of a drawing

•  Open the Palette Editor, where you can edit any of the custom palettes

	NOTE New for 9: All palette operations are now under the Window menu. Go to Window Ø Color Palettes for all operations relative to color palettes. Also, you can now open more than one on-screen palette. The more you choose, the more that will appear.