Tools Palette: A vast array of powerful image manipulation tools

Selecting tools and controlling to colour you paint with


The Tools Palette contains a vast array of powerful image manipulation tools whose use depends on the module they are designed to be used in. For example, painting tools are designed particularly for creating and editing designs, while 3D mapping tools are designed for creating and manipulating grids, and so on.


Opening the Tools Palette

There are a few ways to open the Tools Palette. You can:

  • Got to the Window Menu and select Tools, or
  • You can use the keyboard shortcut ⌘⇧T

Each tool is explained in its own article. Simply search on the tool you want to learn about.

Note: Users of AVA Colour will have a smaller selection of tools than users of AVA Create and Repeat because less tools are needed for recolouring designs

Tool tips

When you hold the cursor over the tool buttons in the Tools Palette for a few seconds a tool tip appears. The tool tip details the name of the tool and where applicable, a shortcut keystroke which can be used to select the tool. In the example below, the  Hand Tool is being hovered over, and the tool tip is (h), meaning you can simply press the H key on the keyboard to select this tool.


And in this example, the Rotate Tool is being hovered over, so its hotkey (r) is displayed;

Tool tips can be particularly useful for first time AVA users, but can also make useful reminders for more experienced AVA users. Since tool tips only appear after hovering for some time, they are considered unobtrusive and as such cannot be disabled.

Delete

Note: To learn how to change the layout of the Tools Palette, please refer to the Tools Settings article listed in the Related Articles at the bottom of this page.

Foreground and background colours

The coloured boxes highlighted in the snapshot below show the foreground and background colours. If you are editing an image, the foreground colour is the colour you will be painting in, and the background colour is the colour which will be used when you erase. This becomes important if the background of the image is not white.

The background colour of the image below is a mustard colour, therefore we have set this colour as our background colour in the Tools Palette by holding down ⌥ (option key) and clicking on the colour with our Pipette Tool.


This means if we need to erase some of the blue colour from the design with the Eraser Tool, will will erase to the mustard colour.


If the background colour in the Tools Palette is white, you will erase to white and leave a whole in the design.


If you are working on separated layers, the foreground colour will show the colour of the active layer. If several layers are active it will display the yield colour for all those layers. The background colour will always be white. This is because when you erase from a layer, you are effectively removing the information, so this colour will always be white, i.e. empty!

To swap the foreground and background colours click this button;

To reset the foreground and background to the default colours of black and white, click this button;

Resetting the background / foreground colours can be automated in a Palette. For help or advice, please contact AVA Technical Support.


Learn how each tool works






The Hand Tool


The Magnify Tool


The Crop Tool


The Lasso Tool


The Magnetic Lasso Tool


The Polygon Tool






The Rectangular Selection Tool


The Oval Selection Tool


The Magic Wand Tool


The Free Rotate Tool


The Text Tool


The Distort Tool






The Pipette Tool


The Pin Tool


The Origin Tool


The Spline Tools


The Vector Cloning Tool


The 3D Designer Tool






The Brush Tool


The Morphing Brush Tool


The Spray Tool


The Pencil Tool


The Dodge & Burn Tool


The Carbon Copy Tool






The Stamp Brush Tool


The Smudge Tool


The Eraser Tool


The Bucket Tool


The Splatter Tool


The Filled | Outline Rectangle Tool






The Filled | Outlined Oval Tool


The Filled | Outlined Freehand Drawing Tool


The Filled | Outlined Polygon Tool


The Filled | Outlined Arc Tool


The Vignette Tool


The Line Tool






The Grid Selection Tool


The Contour Grid Tool


The Perspective Grid Tool


The Rectangular Grid Tool


The Measure Tool


The Select Vector Tool








The Rotate Vector Tool


The Resize Vector Tool


The Freedrawn Grid Tool


The Silhouette Tool


The Kaleidoscope Tool












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