Adobe Photoshop
allows you to fill any solid color as well as any predefined pattern with
desired level of opacity and required blending mode into any selected part of
the selected layer through the command named Fill.
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| Fill command is used to fill solid colors and patterns inside the layers while Black, White and 50% gray inside the layer masks |
How to use Fill command properly in Photoshop?
In order to understand the full functionality of this command,
follow the steps given below:
First of all create
a new Photoshop document with RGB color mode and white content specified.
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| Newly created blank PSD file |
Then ,set blue as Foreground Color and
yellow as Background Color in the Tool Box.
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| Selected Foreground and Background Colors in the Tool panel |
Then, get inside the Edit Menu and select the option named Fill by clicking on it.
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| Option named Fill in the Edit Menu of Photoshop |
As soon as the
option named Fill will be selected, there will be
appeared a dialogue box named Fill.
 |
| Dialogue box referred as Fill appears every time you select the command named Fill. |
In that dialogue box there will be
seen two separate pans under the heads of Contents and Blending.
Contents
Inside the pan referred as Contents there will be seen a drop-down menu named Use. The Content you will find selected here by default will be none other than Foreground Color. In order to find rest of the filling options, the tiny black arrow beside the drop-down menu named Use is supposed to be clicked. As soon as you will click that arrow there will be appeared a menu containing three sections. |
| Three sections in the menu named Use |
The First Section (Foreground and Background Colors)
First section consists of two options which are referred as Foreground Color and Background Color. If you select Foreground Color out of these two options and click the button named OK, the color that has been selected as Foreground Color (blue in the case) in the Tool Panel, will be filled inside the selected layer according to the picture below.
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| Locked background layer with Foreground Color filled inside |
If you select Background Color out of those two options instead of Foreground and click the
button named OK, the color that has been selected as Background Color (yellow in this case) in the Tool Panel, will be filled inside the selected layer.
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| Locked background layer with Background Color filled inside |
The Second Section (Pattern and History)
The second section of the menu named Use is also consists of two options which are referred as Pattern and History. If you select the option named Pattern out of these two options, the formerly inactive option named Custom Pattern will get activated all by itself. If you click the small arrow that can be seen right beside the pattern thumbnail, you will find a pattern picker menu containing different patterns as you can see in the picture below.
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| Different pattern styles |
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| Locked background layer with pattern filled inside |
If you select the
other option named History given in the same section, the selected layer will
be filled with the same content that had been selected during the creation of
the document in the dialogue box named New. For instance during the creation of
the document you had selected White as document content and here in this
section you select the option named History, the selected layer will turn
white again.
The Third Section (White, 50% Gray and Black)
The third section in the same menu
contains three options which are referred as White, 50% Gray and Black.
Though these three options can be used to fill white, gray and black colors
inside the selected layer, but mainly these three options are used when you work
on layer masks instead of layers. Layer mask is basically a way to control layer’s transparency.
There are three types of layer masks you can use in Photoshop. These are White,
Black and Gray. If you fill white color
inside the selected layer mask, that will make the layer beside it completely
visible with 0% transparency, if you fill black color inside the selected layer mask, that will make the layer beside it completely invisible with 100% transparency and if you fill 50% gray inside the selected layer mask that will make the layer beside
it 50% transparent. In order to
understand how to control transparency of any layer by filling white, black and
gray colors inside the layer mask beside it, follow the instructions given below.
First of all fill
any pattern inside the background layer by selecting it form the pattern picker menu named Custom Pattern that is given in the dialogue
box named Fill, as I have explained
earlier. Then add a new layer by hitting the small icon that can be seen right
beneath the layer palette and referred as Create a new layer. As soon as you will
click that icon, there will be appeared a new thumbnail, right above the
background layer in the layer palette, representing a new transparent layer
according to the picture below.
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| New layer thumbnail right above the thumbnail representing background layer in the layer palette |
Then. fill any
solid color (either background or foreground) in that newly added transparent
layer using Fill dialogue box as I
have explained earlier. As soon as the solid color will be filled inside the
newly added layer, it will no longer remain transparent and hide completely the
background layer according to the picture below.
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| As layer 1 is no longer transparent so it has hidden background layer completely |
Then, add a layer
mask beside that layer by clicking the small icon that can be seen right
beneath the layer palette and says Add
layer mask every time having been hovered over. As soon as you will click
that icon, a new thumbnail will be appeared right beside the selected layer
representing newly added layer mask according the picture below.
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| Layer 1 is totally visible with white layer mask beside and it has hidden background layer |
As each layer mask
carries white fill inside it by default and white fill inside any layer mask
represents 0% transparency of the layer beside the same layer mask so the
addition of a layer mask will cause no change in the appearance of the
document.
If you fill black color inside the layer mask, by selecting the option black given inside the drop-down menu named Use, the layer beside the same layer mask will become perfectly invisible with 100% transparency and the background layer will become perfectly visible according to the picture below.
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| Background layer is totally visible from behind the 100% transparent layer 1 |
If you fill
50% grey inside the layer mask instead
of black or white , the layer beside the layer mask will become 50%
transparent and the background layer will begin to peer from behind according to the picture below.
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| Background layer is peering from behind the 50% transparent layer 1 |
Blending
The second pan in
the dialogue box named Fill is
referred as Blending. In this pan
there can be seen a drop-down menu named Mode. Though the default Mode you always find selected here is
none other than Normal, but you can select any blending
mode of your choice out of the different options given inside that drop down
menu to apply on the selected fill style. Further, in the
same pan there will be seen another box referred as Opacity. In that box you can
specify the required opacity for the selected fill style in percentage by
typing the value manually in the box.
For instance if you specify Foreground Color
as Content, Difference as Mode and Opacity equal to 60% in the dialogue box
named Fill according to the picture below.
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| Specify Content, Mode and Opacity for the layer |
The outcome of that
setting can be seen in the picture below.
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| Background layer with blending mode named Dissolve applied along with Foreground Color |
Right beneath the box named Opacity, there will be seen a check
box named Preserve
Transparency. Check is supposed to be put inside that check box only when
we want to preserve the transparency of the empty area inside the selected
layer. For instance in the following image you can see a square shaped object
made on the otherwise transparent layer 1.
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| White background layer is peering through the transparent pixels of layer 1 |
In order to fill any pattern inside that square shaped object only
and to keep rest of the layer completely transparent, all you need to do is to
put check inside the check box referred as Preserve Transparency along with
selecting any required pattern out of the different options given inside the
pattern picker named Custom Pattern according to the picture below.
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| In order to keep intact the transparent part of the layer put check inside the check box named Preserve Transparency |
Having done that setting, click the button named OK to apply it on
the selected layer and you will see the outcome similar to the picture below.
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| Still partly transparent layer 1 |
If you want to fill the required pattern inside the entire layer, check is not supposed to be put inside the check box named Preserve Transparency according to the picture below.
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| Preserve Transparency check box is no longer selected |
As the check box named Preserved Transparency has not been selected, so, as soon as you will hit the button named OK, the selected pattern will be filled inside the entire layer according to the picture below.
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| Transparency has not been preserved of the formerly transparent pixels |
So that is all about the dialogue box named Fill. I hope this post will be proved helpful to all my readers.Kindly don't forget to share your opinion regarding this post by subscribing your comments
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