We’ve covered symbols, autotrace, and text tools. This episode builds on your custom color palette (created in the Color Presets window) and shows you how to actually apply those colors to both rasterized images and vector objects.
What You’ll Learn
Rasterized images, like a JPEG, are made of pixels with soft, pixelated edges. Vector objects, like an SVG, have sharp, calculated edges. Because they’re fundamentally different kinds of data, canvasxdraw gives you different tools for recoloring each one and this episode shows you both.
Watch: Using Colors in canvasxdraw
Quick Recap: Recoloring Rasterized Images
1. Select the Bucket tool.
2. Pick your color.
3. Click the color you want to change in your rasterized picture. The Bucket tool swaps it out directly, pixel by pixel.
Quick Recap: Recoloring Vector Objects
1. Select the Smart Vector tool.
2. Pick your color.
3. Click the object. Because vector objects are built from calculated paths rather than pixels, the color change applies cleanly across the whole shape.
You can also select any object directly and choose a replacement ink color — a fast option when you already know exactly which element you’re updating.
Why It’s Worth Knowing
Color is never just decoration in technical and design work it carries meaning, matches brand or industry standards, and needs to update fast when specs change. Knowing which tool to reach for (Bucket for raster, Smart Vector for vector) means you’re never fighting the wrong tool to get a clean result. And because canvasxdraw’s Attributes palette lets you save your own ink and color presets for reuse, once you’ve built a palette you like, applying it consistently across a whole project takes seconds, not minutes.
Haven’t tried canvasxdraw yet? See what precision without compromise feels like.
This post is part of our canvasxdraw How-To video series. Have a feature you want us to cover next? Let us know.