Tuesday, October 13, 2015

EQ7 Tips and Tricks - Swap All Colors and Spraycan

(This tip is part of a growing EQ tutorial series, you can find all of my EQ Tips and Tricks right here.)


Welcome back for another EQ7 Tips and Tricks Tutorial.  I am first going to show you one of my most favorite tools in EQ7, the "Swap All Colors" button.


You can design quilts in many other programs like Power Point, Abobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, and others, but I have not found another program that allows for such quick and easy switching of colors and prints in a quilt rendering.

Here is our test quilt for today made up of a repeating chain block from EQ's block library in the original EQ provided colors.


Not bad, but I think that some of the pattern is lost because the 3 colors have lower contrast compared to each other.

To change all of one color within a quilt to another color:

1.  Select the "Swap All Colors" button on the right hand side of the screen.
2.  Select the color or fabric you would like to use.
3.  Click in the quilt on the color you would like to replace.  

The color within the quilt you click on will switch to the new color throughout the entire quilt.


With just a few clicks you have a whole different looking quilt and you can easily and quickly audition many colors and fabrics in your designs.


 

The next button to show is the Spraycan button which is the button right above the Swap All Colors button.  It works the same as the Swap All Colors button, but swaps the colors within a single block.


To change all of one color within a single quilt block to another color:

1.  Select the "Spraycan" button on the right hand side of the screen.
2.  Select the color or fabric you would like to use.
3.  Click in the quilt on the color you would like to replace.  

The color within the quilt block you click on will switch to the new color throughout the quilt block.


With a few clicks of the Spraycan button, I recolored the quilt blocks using a variety of April Showers by Bonnie and Camille prints.


I hope that you find these tutorials clear and helpful!  Let me know if you have any topics you would like me to cover.

I am very happy to link up with Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh QuiltsNeedle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt InfatuationWIP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced, and Tips and Tutorials Tuesday @ Late Night Quilter.




10 comments:

  1. I really appreciate your EQ7 tutorials. I'm still figuring out the program, and your hints having me trying things I might not otherwise use. : )

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  2. Thanks you so much for sharing this! I have EQ7 but have never really had time to set down and play with it. This information will save so much time going forward. I don't even want to talk about how much time I've wasted clicking changing the colors of things...it would be a very sad conversation.

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  3. Both of those features are fantastic! Sometimes a simple change is just what is needed!

    I have a topic...how do you import new fabrics, colors or even blocks into your EQ7 library?

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  4. Wow, very powerful tools, and you are right that it is more time consuming to do these functions in other software.

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  5. Thanks for the reminders about these tools! I use the Swap All Colors tool all the time, but I forgot all about how the Spraycan works. Very handy!

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  6. Thanks for this tutorial! I am new to EQ7 and tried to figure out how to do this just this weekend. I eventually gave up but now I can go back and play again.

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  7. I have EQ7 and don't use it much because it frustrates me. Your tutorials are really helpful, and I'm getting a bit better. Thank you!

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  8. I love EQ, it's usually the first step in any quilt I make. I've used the color palette but really like to scan and use my own fabrics.

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  9. I love the change all color, but haven't used the spray can tool, but have to try it in the future.

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  10. This is one of my favorite features too Cheryl and I usually try out a whole lot of color schemes before purchasing fabric. I think EQ has paid for itself many times over because of being able to test out fabrics like this. Great Tutorial and great visual aids!

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Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment!