Colors

Color Modes

IcoFX supports three color modes for easier color selection. You can select the desired color mode on the Colors Panel

RGB - Red, Green, Blue

Using this color mode you can select the color by adjusting the red, green and blue amount of the color. The color consists of three components: red, green and blue. By specifying the value of each component you can mix your color.

HSB - Hue, Saturation , Brightness

In the HSB color mode you can select a color by adjusting its hue, saturation and brightness. You select the desired color by adjusting the hue. You can select how vivid the color is by changing the saturation value. A lower saturation will result in grayer color while a greater value results in a vivid color. Additionally you can select the brightness of the color by setting the brightness value.

Grayscale

In the grayscale mode you can only select the brightness of the color. The color can be different shades of gray from black to white. You can select 255 shades of gray.

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Bit Depth

The bit depth or data type of an image refers to the way that the image is stored internally, how many space (Bits) does a single pixel of the image occupy. This affects the number of colors that an image can display. Images with a data type of 1, 4 or 8 bits contain a palette. Using this technique they do not need to store the color of each pixel, they store only the palette index of the given color. Images with a data type of 24 or 32 bits do not use palettes. They store the color of each pixel separately.

You can change the bit depth of an image using the "Adjustments/Data Type" menu items. For palette based images you have the option to create an optimized palette that suites best for the image or to use the default Windows palette. It is recommended to use the default Windows palette for 1 and 4 bit images, and to use optimized palette for 8 bit images.

IcoFX supports five data types:

Monochrome (1 Bit)

Each pixel of the image occupies only one bit. You have two available colors in the palette.

16 Colors (4 Bits)

Each pixel of the image occupies 4 bits. You have 16 available colors in the palette.

256 Colors (8 Bits)

Each pixel of the image occupies one byte (8 Bits). You have 256 available colors in the palette.

True Color (24 Bits)

Each pixel of the image occupies 3 Bytes (24 Bits), one byte for the red, one for the green and one for the blue component. You have 16777216 available colors.

Each pixel has a red, green and blue component

True Color + Alpha (32 Bits)

The only difference between the 24 Bits and 32 Bits data type is that the 32 Bits data type stores a transparency value for each pixel. Each pixel of the image occupies 4 Bytes (32 Bits). You have 16777216 available colors plus the opacity information of each pixel.

Each pixel has a red, green, blue and alpha component

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Color Management

IcoFX makes available many color selection methods.

You can select the desired background or foreground colors using the Colors Panel. On this panel you can mix the desired color. On the Swatches Panel you can select the desired color from a set of predefined colors. These colors were previously selected and stored in a swatches. Additionally you can select the color from a palette using the Palette Panel.

To select a color that is used in an image you can always use the Color Picker tool.

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