Windows 7 Paint: How exactly do I create custom colors AND use them.

Question

First off, I do NOT want to download or buy anything, I just want to know if there is any way to get Paint to do what I want.  (I've read a lot of random issues with paint and the first thing suggest is "download this or that".)  Now on to my issue:

Last night I spent 8 hours googling and scouring "help" files (why on earth does the help button in Paint give me 30 results that have nothing to do with Paint?  what happened to help files giving you help on the program you clicked "help" in?) trying to figure out how to get custom "colors" to work.

After 8 hours I eventually managed to define 16 custom colors (I needed a range of greys) only to find out I had to individually select up to 10 that I could actually use (why can I define 16 if I can only use 10?).  I reconfigured my custom-defined greyscale to 10 shades of grey and eventually got them all to show up in the 10 boxes under the original colors.

My current problem is that apparently my custom (grey) colors are not having their defined RGB values respected.  Both 0,0,0 and 28,28,28 are being treated as black when I try to use them (although they show up as different when I look at them on the ribbon) and if I use 57,57,57 (just slightly lighter) it jumps to being a medium grey instead of being just slightly lighter than the shade before it.  Is there any way I can make my custom colors actually be used as the colors I defined?  I've restricted myself to just using the pencil and paint bucket tools.  I have avoided the brushes since I don't really want to blend my colors when I am drawing; I want the color I pick to result in actually drawing using the same color, not blend with whatever might be underneath.

In a nutshell, the custom color I pick on the ribbon appears to decide to mimic one of the pre-defined colors instead of be the color I created.  How do I use custom colors andnot have them morph into a pre-defined color when I attempt to use them?

Answer 1

Hi CCCMistiq,

Please follow the supporting steps.  I hope this information is beneficial.  RGB for the colorgreyis 128,128,128.

The decimal value of the color red is 255, 0, 0

RGB colors are expressed in 3 sections, one each for red, green, andblue. The higher the number, the more prevalent that color is, in other words, pure red is 255, 0, 0; pureblueis 0, 255, 0; and pure green is 0, 0, 255.

RGB shades of grey

The lower the numbers are, the darker the resulting color. 0, 0, 0 is black and 255, 255, 255 is white. If all the numbers are equal, the resulting color is a shade ofgrey. While 25, 25, 25 is a dark grey,

210, 210, 210 is a light grey.

Opening the Microsoft Paint color palette

To edit the colors from Microsoft Paint, select Edit Colors from the Colors menu or double-click one of the color squares under the menus.

Basic colors of the Microsoft paint palette

When you first open it, you will see the basic colors of the palette. To create more colors and see the RGB values, click the 'Define Custom Colors' button.

The custom colors window

With the custom colors window open, if you click on one of the basic colors, you will see its RGB values. In this case, the basic brown is equal to 128, 64, 0.

Adjusting color in Microsoft Paint

You can adjust the color by moving the color selector or changing the numbers in RGB or in Hue, Saturation and Luminosity. You can also select a different shade of a given color by using the slider bar on the right. Each time you change the color, the RGB numbers will change.

Creating a new custom color in Microsoft Paint

To add your chosen color to your custom palette, click 'Add to Custom Colors'. By default, the color will be added to the first spot, even if there is already a color there. If you don't want to overwrite previous colors, click a blank square before you create a new color for the custom color palette.

8RGB colors are used in many programs. If you look at the source of web pages, you will see RGB colors expressed in hexadecimal form. In hexadecimal, the highest value is FF, which is equal to 255 in decimal numbers.

Hope this information is beneficial.

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Thanks and Regards:I. Suuresh Kumar - Microsoft Support. Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

Answer 2

That information was very helpful (most of it I had already found after intensive searching).  My current problem is that when I pick the custom colors I defined (28,28,28 or 57,57,57) they turn into entirely different shades of grey than what is shown when I clicked on them (they appear properly on the ribbon, they just change when I attempt to use them to draw).  The 28,28,28 turns into black and the 57,57,57 turns into a much lighter grey when they should both be different shades of dark grey.

Answer 3

@ CCCMistiq:

I see you received a canned response to your problem which, of course, did not even address the problem which you described.  Here it is ten months later and you still have not received any response to your very polite statement telling them their response did not help.  Funny how there's only a "Yes" button under the question "Was this helpful?" .  No negative feedback will be allowed here!

@Nithyananda J

No, your response was not helpful in the least!  You just spouted off basic info about custom color selection and never addressed the problem which CCCMistiq described.  He obviously already knew this info as he stated that he had already defined the custom colors which he wanted to use.  He then described his problem which was that Paint does not USE the custom colors that he defined!  Did you even read his entire post?  Did you even attempt to understand the problem he was describing?  Have you even read his later response?

Answer 4

Hello,

May I suggest going to Windows 7/Paint support forum for that specific question. This forum is for generalized questions. Try this as a starting point:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/paint

hope this helps

Eddie B

Answer 5

Would be nice to know if their is a way to add higher or lower gloss or flatt finish to the colors?/