How do I use the Color Picker tool

[Garrymo]

I clicked on the eye dropper icon and the color changed from black to a light gold. I've been clicking K to try to get the black back. What am I missing? K+ something?

HELP

Edited February 14 by Garrymo

[Tactilis]

3 hours ago, Garrymo said:

I've been clicking K to try to get the black back.

Pressing K simply makes the Color Picker the active tool. Repeatedly pressing K won't do anything else. There's no such thing as K+
 

 

3 hours ago, Garrymo said:

What am I missing?

You are missing an understanding of some of the fundamentals of paint.net. A good read of the paint.net Documentation will help you.

 

Click the icon top right in paint.net or go directly to https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/index.html

 

Read in particular:

 

Tools -> Photo Tools -> Color Picker Tool to properly understand the operation of that tool.

 

Color -> Color Window to understand the Primary and Secondary color slots and use of that window in general.

 

Then gradually work your way through the rest of the Documentation, trying things out as you go. It's a well written document and will help you become proficient in the use of paint.net.

[Garrymo]

Thanks. It had been years since I used paint.net and I hadn't even noticed the ? icon for information. I was surpirsed at finding:

Layers

Layers allow an image to be composed from a stack of images that are blended together.

paint.net supports many layer blend modes, layer transparency and reordering of layers with drag-and-drop.

 

And I just don't understand that. I have a list of thumbnails across the top of the screen with the items I want to blend to create an image but as soon as I click on one it simply swaps out for the previous image. Which tool do I use to drag and drop from where to where to blend the two images, please?

[Tactilis]

9 minutes ago, Garrymo said:

I have a list of thumbnails across the top of the screen with the items I want to blend to create an image but as soon as I click on one it simply swaps out for the previous image. Which tool do I use to drag and drop from where to where to blend the two images, please?

@Garrymo - In an earlier post, you asked "What am I missing?" and I pointed you towards the documentation.

I added "Then gradually work your way through the rest of the Documentation, trying things out as you go. It's a well written document and will help you become proficient in the use of paint.net."

So, please do that. You will find the answers to your questions.

Read Getting Started -> Overview and Features, then read User Interface -> Main Window  and User Interface -> Image List

Then read about layers in the Layers section.  Then experiment.



(In short the thumbnails across the top are separate images. You create multiple Layers within an image).