What is a protected colour?

A protected colour is a swatch that has had the Protect Colour status applied to it. This can be applied and removed by right clicking the swatch and selecting Protect Colour.

Once the Protect Colour status is applied, the swatch will appear with a red bar next to it in the colour palette:

This protection is applied only to the ID of the swatch and the zones where it is applied, NOT the RGB value. Therefore, protecting a colour will not prevent edits to the swatch’s colour.

You can prevent a zone with a protected colour from being repainted or unpainted by activating the Respect Protected Colour setting.

About Respect Protected Colour

To lock and unlock protected colours, you need to use the Respect Protected Colour setting. This setting is usually activated by default, which means protected colours will automatically be locked. If you’d like to adjust protected zones, disable the setting.

This Respect Protected Colour button can be found in the Tool Properties of the following tools:

• The Paint tools:
• The Brushtool
• The Stencil Brush tool
   

You can also find Respect Protected Colour options in Colour Protection under the Drawing menu:

Where to use protected colours

Here are a few examples of how you could use a protected colour:

• To prevent lines from being painted when you need to fill artwork. This is especially useful when painting multiple frames or drawings.
• When there are a lot of details close together, or overlapping, where only certain shapes need to be repainted.
• If there are zones that need to be unpainted, but you only want certain colours to be affected.
• To help prevent yourself and others in the pipeline from accidentally repainting/unpainting certain areas.