PSP8 Survival Kit: Page 2
	To change the swatch just click on whichever one you want. Left-clicking will make the swatch the new foreground, while right-clicking will place the swatch on the background (see right). As you can see, I left-clicked on the zebra swatch so my red foreground has been replaced. (Notice however, that it doesn't change at all in the smaller square....I'm not sure why as yet, but I'm assuming it remembers your previous choice just in case you want to quickly go back to it).

I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that we can still change the foreground and background pretty much the same way as before (i.e. by right or left clicking), however let's take a closer look at some of those new features:

If you look closely, you will see a few little icons across the bottom of the palette (see left). Click on the first icon to check it out. You'll see what looks like a funky set of traffic lights. Basically what they do is allow you to change the look of the palette itself - you can change it to display ALL of the colors and swatches available, or just the solid colors, just the gradients, or just the patterns. The second option (see where the arrow is pointing to, at left) allows you to create swatches of your own. You can also delete a swatch, or go to a whole range of other options, including 'rename', 'sort' etc. What did I tell you about giving us more flexibility? Wow!

You can even change the size and shape of the palette itself simply by resizing it (dragging) with your mouse. The tiny scroll bars (i.e. arrows) that are greyed out will come into play once you fill up the window with new swatches, so you can scroll through them easily to find what you need.

Before we leave the materials palette though, just a couple of more things. Let's switch back to the color palette for a closer look (see bottom left). At the bottom of the color rainbow you'll find a line of greyscale squares. These allow you to quickly change to black or white quickly, or shades of grey in between. Well, I don't know about you, but I always hoped to find gold at the end of the rainbow, but I guess I'll just have to settle for greyscale instead! (Sorry, but I thought maybe a little levity is called for right about now? ;-).

Those other small icons (more traffic lights!) give you more options. The first one allows you to change color, gradient, pattern, etc. (see right) The one in the middle allows you to pick a texture, and the third option is the transparency button, which apparently works similarly to the old "null" button. The transparency option is only available for working with certain tools, such as text and vectors - so if you see yours greyed out most of the time, relax, that's the way it should be. The 'All Tools' thing (as far as I can tell so far) works similarly to the old 'lock styles' option in PSP7.

I suppose the only thing left for me to say now about the Materials Palette is to experiment, experiment, experiment, and have fun playing with this new toy. For a more in-depth look you'll find a tutorial which shows you what it's really capable of doing (for instance, how to combine colours, textures and gradients all in the one image without using layers) right here.

Now onto what could be our greatest challenge....the new toolbox options ;-)