Photoshop CS For Dummies

Choose Edit→Fill to display the Fill dialog box, shown in Figure 13-4. The Use drop-down list lets you specify the color or stored image with which you want to fill the selection; the Blending options let you mix the filled colors with the colors already inside the selection. I discuss all these options in more detail in the following sections.

Figure 13-4: Specify how you want to fill a selection by using the options in the Fill dialog box.

Selecting your fill color

The most important part of the Fill dialog box is the Use drop-down list. Here you select the stuff you want to use to fill the selection. The options are as follows:

• The Foreground Color option: Fills the selection with the Foreground color, and the Background Color option fills the selection with the Background color.

• The Pattern option: Fills a selection with a repeating pattern. You can define a pattern by selecting a rectangular area and choosing Edit→Define Pattern. You can access the patterns with the Custom Pattern pop-up palette. For more about patterns, turn to Chapter 10.

• The History option: Fills the selection with a previously saved step of that portion of the image. In short, the History palette remembers all your previous steps, which are called source states. You select a previous source state in the palette, and the selection fills with the image as it appeared at that point in time. Check out Chapter 14 for more about the History palette.

• The Black, 50% Gray, and White options: Fill the selection with black, medium gray, and white, respectively.

How not to mix colors

You can enter a value into the Opacity text box of the Fill dialog box to mix the fill color or history source state with the present colors in the selection. You also can mix the fill and the selected color using the options in the Mode drop-down list box, which include Multiply, Screen, Difference, and other blending modes. (See Chapter 8 for more about blending modes.)

Notice that I said you can do these things, not that you should do these things. The truth is, you don’t want to use the Fill dialog box’s Blending options to mix fills with selections. Why? Because the Fill dialog box doesn’t let you preview the effects of the Blending options. Even seasoned professionals have trouble predicting the exact results of Opacity setting and Mode option, and it’s likely that you will, too. And, if you don’t like what you get, you have to undo the operation and choose Edit→Fill all over again.