MS Paint Swatches - Roareye Black

First of all, let's explain this feature as it is to do with the colour swatches. When it is set to the position as is shown, it means that the secondary colour (Explained below) will be used as a block for when you drag pieces of the image out with the Free Form or Select tool. Should you click on the grey image, it will turn blue and the blue part of the box in this picture will turn grey. In this position, the secondary colour will be transparent meaning that you can put another colour or background behind the image. Click on the grey part of the box to switch back

This is your primary and secondary colour blocks. In the image shown, the black is the primary colour (Left mouse click) and the white is the secondary colour (Right mouse click). To change the colours, you must go to the swatch blocks next to your primary and secondary colours and left click on the relevant colour to make it your primary and right click to make it your secondary.

The swatches you get on the basic palette are basic and will be useless for decent shading. MS Paint has, of course, made way for you to select whichever colour you like. By double-clicking one of the mouse buttons on one of the unwanted swatches, you will get up a box that will look like the image to the left in one of the corners. It has a variety of preset swatches for you to use.

To get a complete selection of swatch colours, however, you must click the Define Custom Colours >>> button. This will bring up a rainbow of colours, full size unlike the image to the left, and you use the cursor to select the relevant colour and greyscale of the colour.

Your not just left with the option of greyscale and colour selection, you also have the tonal select, which is a bar at the side of the Custom Colour window. Use the cursor to move the arrow up and down to select the darkness/brightness of the colour.

This is where you will get the numerals for your selected colour, write them down and you can come back and use the tone later, or input the colour code here to recieve that colour in the Custom Colours chart. The only problem with Ms Paint is that it doesn't save your custom swatches, even with Add to Custom Colours, so it's best to take a 3x3 pixel square up on your background to keep a small swatch on the main file. That way, you can use the Pick Colour tool and use it over and over again.

There is one other addition to MS Paint which isn't usually used but can be quite fun called Invert. To 'invert' a colour is to make the colour the complete opposite colour in your selected area, so Pink becomes Turquoise for example. To use this addition go through Image > Invert Colours. The shortcut to use this tool is Ctrl+I, remember that you have to have selected something with the Free form or Select tool to use this feature.