GIMP Version: 2.8.10
Operating System: Mac OS
GIMP Experience: Beginner Level

---

Hi Gimpers,

When using the text tool, I can click on the color button to bring up the swatches and color tools, but strangely the color picker (eye dropper) is missing here. Can I not get a color from my screen? Looks like I can't even set the text color to the current foreground/background color unless I look at the numbers, memorize them, and punch them into the text tool again. I'm sure there must be an easier way.

Thanks,
Stefan

If you click on the "Color" rectangle in the Text options or in the color square in the on-canvas editor, the color selector dialog that shows up has a "Color picker" button (to the right of the HTML notation entry field).

Here's a link to a gif image I made, showing how I change the color of text. This isn't the only way to change the color of text in Gimp, but it's a way that I found works for me.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gm2uk149pru3z ... 9.gif?dl=0

Another easy way is to double click your text area with the text tool selected. Then click on the color swatch on the text tool.

Oh boy, I actually missed this icon! Thanks for pointing it out, but somehow its logic isn't clear to me. When I click the eyedropper, I expected the cursor to change which doesn't happen (it's just the normal pointer), so I click somewhere, but the color isn't changed. Clicking on the big color field and swatches does work, but not with the eyedropper. That's odd.

Stefan

It should definitely change to an eye dropper icon, sometimes when it doesn't change for me I have to click it a few times to make it change. I blame it on the mouse setting.

Looks like my system is weird again - I can click all I want. The status changes (the button alternates between slightly highlighted and tool tip), but no matter how much I click the pointer does not change and I can not pick a color outside of the color box dialog (i.e. in my image).

Stefan

Now that is strange, someone here might have the answer.
What about using the Gimp tools color picker here...
instead of the foreground one

Yes the normal foreground color picker works as expected, but I can't use that to color text.

Stefan

Sometimes the Text tool can seem a bit funny when you're not use to it. Try the, Use editor checkbox.
I've also had a color picker selection not register as the current text color when it was already in the history list.

Why not. Once you have your color selected, go alpha to selection on your text, then drag your color over into it, or use the bucket tool.

Yes but then it is no longer a text layer it will be rastered. Do as i said before viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11611#p157040 and double click the text with the text tool selected. Then click the swatch on the text tool and select the color picker from the dialog that will open. Your text MUST be a text layer (T next to the layer) for this to work.

Unfortunately, the color picker behaves exactly the same way for me as the on-canvas color picker. It won't let me pick anything. It just toggles status (without changing the icon, though).

Guess I'll live with the Apple color picker to find out the color value of the pixel I want, then copy that into the color picker table. Nice detour... sheeesh.

Well that's just what I did. Unfortunately, I can't show you my cursor while I'm grabbing the screen, but it's my normal pointer after I click the picker (you can barely see that it's selected). And I cannot pick a color while the picker is active. When it's not active, I can pick a color from the color dialog window. But I want to pick a color form the screen (which is the whole point of the picker I suppose).
I don't think I'm doing something wrong, I think my system is weird.

AFAIK the picker cannot pick colors on windows that don't belong to Gimp. This said, there are plenty of cases where you want to pick a color within the same image, and if necessary you can do a screenshot in Gimp and pick your colors from that.

Yes, that's a workaround, but perhaps not simpler than using my Apple digital color meter, finding a pixel in my image and copying the info into the GIMP color window. I'm pretty sure it used to work for me, but as my previous installation had weird problems of not finding plugins etc. I reinstalled GIMP and it looks like the tradeoff now is the color picker!

Technically picking a color in some other application isn't a good idea, because if you use color management, the color you'll pick is the final color, not the original color-managed color, and since you can't tell which color profile that app is using, you don't really know what color you picked.

Actually that app just copies the color off the screen. How that would be different from the GIMP picker? Doesn't it do the exact same thing? I can also display that color in HTML notation or as a RGB triplet. If I enter the values into the GIMP box, it looks pretty good to me. Of course, this is all just for on-screen work.

@ Coalman I don't always get the proper icon but if I use the active cursor after clicking on colour picker (Often it's a "+") that is active at the time, I usually get the colour I'm after.

Use the Gimp Colour Picker Tool to chose the screen colour 'before' you add text. This will change both the regular foreground colour and text colour in text options. If that doesn't work, you have issues with your set-up.