AfterEffects

Select a color or edit a gradient

In many contexts, you can click an eyedropper button to activate the eyedropper tool, or you can click a color swatch to open a color picker. If you use the Adobe Color Picker, you can also activate the eyedropper from the Adobe Color Picker dialog box.

If you click a gradient swatch for a shape layer’s stroke or fill, or click Edit Gradient in the Timeline panel, the Adobe Color Picker opens as the Gradient Editor, with additional controls for editing gradients included at the top of the dialog box.

Note: The sampleImage expression samples the color values in a way similar to that of the eyedropper. Use this method to use color values of specific pixels as input into an expression. (See Layer General attributes and methods.)
View full size graphic

A.
Opacity stop

B.
Color stop

C.
Opacity midpoint

D.
Eyedropper

E.
New-color rectangle

F.
Original-color rectangle

Choose a color picker

 Choose Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > General (Mac OS), and do one of the following:

  • To use the color picker provided by the operating system, select Use System Color Picker.

  • To use the Adobe Color Picker, deselect Use System Color Picker.

Select a color with the eyedropper tool

  1. Click the eyedropper button, and move the pointer to the pixel that you want to sample. The color swatch next to the eyedropper button dynamically changes to the color under the eyedropper.
  2. Do one of the following:

    • To select the color of a single pixel, click the pixel.

    • To sample the color average of a 5-pixel-by-5-pixel area, Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) the area.

Press the Escape key to deselect the eyedropper.

Select a color with the Adobe Color Picker

  1. Click a color swatch to display the Adobe Color Picker.
  2. (Optional) To prevent panels from updating with the results of your color selection until you accept the color by clicking OK, deselect Preview in the Color Picker dialog box. The Preview option is not available in all contexts.
    Note: Selecting Preview is convenient for seeing the results of your color selections before you commit them, but it can also decrease performance, as new images are rendered for the preview in the Composition panel or Layer panel.
  3. Select the component you want to use to display the color spectrum:
    H
    Displays all hues in the color slider. Selecting a hue in the color slider displays the saturation and brightness range of the selected hue in the color spectrum, with the saturation increasing from left to right and brightness increasing from bottom to top.

    S
    Displays all hues in the color spectrum with their maximum brightness at the top of the color spectrum, decreasing to their minimum at the bottom. The color slider displays the color that’s selected in the color spectrum with its maximum saturation at the top of the slider and its minimum saturation at the bottom.

    B (in the HSB section)
    Displays all hues in the color spectrum with their maximum saturation at the top of the color spectrum, decreasing to their minimum saturation at the bottom. The color slider displays the color that’s selected in the color spectrum with its maximum brightness at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness at the bottom.

    R
    Displays the red color component in the color slider with its maximum brightness at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness at the bottom. When the color slider is set to minimum brightness, the color spectrum displays colors created by the green and blue color components. Using the color slider to increase the red brightness mixes more red into the colors displayed in the color spectrum.

    G
    Displays the green color component in the color slider with its maximum brightness at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness at the bottom. When the color slider is set to minimum brightness, the color spectrum displays colors created by the red and blue color components. Using the color slider to increase the green brightness mixes more green into the colors displayed in the color spectrum.

    B (in the RGB section)
    Displays the blue color component in the color slider with its maximum brightness at the top of the slider and its minimum brightness at the bottom. When the color slider is set to minimum brightness, the color spectrum displays colors created by the green and red color components. Using the color slider to increase the blue brightness mixes more blue into the colors displayed in the color spectrum.

  4. Do any of the following:

    • Drag the triangles along the color slider, or click inside the color slider to adjust the colors displayed in the color spectrum.

    • Click or drag inside the large square color spectrum to select a color. A circular marker indicates the color's position in the color spectrum.

      Note: As you adjust the color using the color slider and color spectrum, the numeric values change to indicate the new color. The top rectangle to the right of the color slider displays the new color; the bottom rectangle displays the original color. Click the bottom rectangle to reset the color to the original color.

    • For HSB, specify hue (H) as an angle, from 0° to 360°, that corresponds to a location on the color wheel. Specify saturation (S) and brightness (B) as percentages (0 to 100).

    • For RGB, specify component values. You can set colors to under-range and over-range values (outside of the range of 0.0 to 1.0) in an HDR project.

    • For #, enter a color value in hexadecimal form. This color format is common in web workflows.

Edit a gradient

A gradient is defined by color stops and opacity stops. Each stop has a location along the gradient and a value for color or opacity. The values between stops are interpolated. By default, the interpolation is linear, but you can drag the opacity midpoint or color midpoint between two stops to alter the interpolation.

  • To add a color stop or opacity stop, click below or above the gradient bar in the Gradient Editor dialog box.
  • To remove a stop, drag it away from the gradient bar, or select the stop and click Delete.
  • To edit a stop’s value, select it and adjust the Opacity value or use the Adobe Color Picker controls beneath the gradient editor controls.
  • To choose a gradient type, click the Linear Gradient or Radial Gradient button in the upper-left corner of the Gradient Editor dialog box.
    Note: Use the Style property to choose a gradient type for the Gradient Overlay layer style.