Page 419 - Xara Designer Pro X17

The Photo Tools 419

Using Theme colors
It’s always good design practice to limit the number of different colors within a document.
But the use of shades of your predominant color is to be encouraged. To help make the
use of lighter and darker shades, the program creates two linked paler, and two darker
shades of each of the THEME COLOR 1 to 5 colors. You can see in the above examples
the use of brighter and darker shades of THEME COLOR 1 and 2.

The color analysis is based on an algorithm that determines the predominant colors
based on their brightness, and coverage area. It automatically combines similar shades.
For example, a blue sky typically contains many lighter and darker shades of the same
blue hue. So this would be created as a single blue color. It also adjusts the brightness of
THEME COLOR 1 and 2 (the two most predominant colors) so it always provides a good
contrast against a white page background.

This means you can always use THEME COLOR 1 as a heading color, for example, and it
will be readable. Or, alternatively you can place white text on THEME COLOR 1 or 2,
perhaps a colored rectangle of THEME COLOR 1 or 2, and that text will also always be
readable.

See Theme colors (on page 197) for more info on the color schemes.

Text Color
Another common technique designers use, is to link the main text color to the
predominant theme color, although obviously this needs to be dark enough to provide
enough contrast to be legible. Therefore Designer Pro also creates a named color call
TEXT that could be used for the body text of your document.

Extracting Colors from Logos
This feature also works with any image - including transparent PNGs so, for example, if
you add a company logo graphic to your page that includes your brand colors, you can
automatically set the Theme Colors to match those used in your company logo.

Customizing
You can customize The named colors the usual way. Right click on the color patch on
the color line, and select EDIT.