This tutorial is on foreground and background colors in Adobe Photoshop. I’ll show you what these are, how to change them, how to fill your background and a bunch of keyboard shortcuts.
Recapping Tutorial on Foreground and Background Colors in Photoshop
In Photoshop towards the bottom right you’ll notice a black square and white square that sit on top of each other. These are your foreground and background colors in Photoshop.
To change either of these colors click inside the box. Once you do this then a new Color Picker box will open up. Select the new color and click OK. There’s a number of ways to select a new color. Feel free to play around if you’re new to Photoshop.
The foreground color is the square that’s on top. The background color is the square that’s underneath. Clicking the tiny arrows above the two squares will switch the colors. The keyboard shortcut to switch the foreground and background colors is the “X” key.
Let’s say you want to use this color to fill a layer with that color. I do this all the time if I need to make a quick background for a lower third or whatever it is I’m composing in Photoshop. To fill with the foreground color use the keyboard shortcut Option+Delete/Backspace if you’re on a Mac. If you’re on a PC the keyboard shortcut is Alt+Backspace. To fill the layer with the background color use Command+Delete/Backspace if you’re on a Mac. On a PC the keyboard shortcut is Control+Backspace.
If you want to reset the colors back to the default of black and white use the “D” key.
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