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.

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.

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