GIMP/Colour Picker

The Basics

Default colour picker tool settings.

Shortcut: O

On the right side you can see the settings for the colour picker. Here's a short description of everything there:

• Sample average - set whether to pick average value from pixels within some radius (1 to 300px) of the selected point.
• Sample merged - set whether to merge the colour from all visible layers and pick that (i.e. to pick the colour as seen).
• Pick mode - modes, see below.
• Use info window - set whether you want to see the info window, see below.

Pick Mode

The info window.

There are four modes in the colour picker tool. Here are their descriptions:

• Pick only - only picks a colour, doing nothing to it (information dialogue must be turned on);
• Set foreground colour - picked colour is used as foreground colour;
• Set background colour - picked colour is used as background colour;
• Add to palette - adds the colour to the palette, especially useful while creating palettes;

Ctrl switches between Set foreground colour and Set background colour, when either of these is active.

Info Window

Shows an info window, with two columns of information - you can choose for both of those these options: pixel, RGB, HSV and CMYK, with pixel and RGB being active by default. Shift toggles it on and off.