Hi,
I've been using FCPX for a while and sometimes I need to use the color picker for a third-party effect, but, instead of the usual eyedropper or magnifying glass icon, I get this big circle with a small rectangle in the center. It does magnify but the circle is far too large. Any idea what happened to the usual color picker?
TIA,
James
OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)
At the bottom of the system picker window is an eyedropper icon/button. Click that to choose a color from the screen.
The "default" picker is a "color wheel" typical favorite of most artists. It is indicative of the perceptual nature of color (red - orange - yellow - green - cyan - blue - violet - red.)
The system color picker can be a color wheel circle, sliders, "tags" or tabs or swatches (however you want to refer to them), spectrum, and colored pencils (48 colors). There are five small icons at the top of the picker window. Pick the system you want to use. If you select the sliders picker, you will have the option of grayscale, RGB, CMYK and HSB. You can also "load" the squares at the bottom with your "favorites".
You might prefer the Spectrum picker:
You might also want to try right clicking on the color tab in the inspector (or click on the down arrow on the right side) and you'll get this compact popup version:
except there will be an eyedropper cursor in place of the arrow shown.
It is a large circle with a square in the center. The square is a pixel. That's what you're picking. That's what the color picker has always picked, a single pixel. Now you can see what you're picking much more accurately.
After some thinking I realized this is the way the Color Picker seems to work now and it's annoying to say the least. The eyedropper pointer is used for many FCPX functions that require choosing a color but not the Picker, despite the dropper icon in its window. Is there any way around this?
Yes I know what the color wheel is. What I meant is clicking on the eyedropper icon in the system color picker window causes the mouse pointer to change into a large circle instead of the customary eyedropper. Running the system color picker as a standalone app does the same thing. This can't be right.
That is correct, but I liked the eyedropper or magnifying glass better. This monstrosity takes up too much real estate imo. In fact, FCP's color picker for functions that require picking a clip color is just an eyedropper afaict. Maybe I can find something to replace what the system uses.
It should change into a eyedropper when I do that but it doesn't. It changes to a large circle that magnifies a large area yet it isn't the typical magnifying glass pointer either.
Why Is Color Picker a Circle?
