The Color & Swatches panel edits colour on the selection — a shape's fill or stroke, or text — and holds the project's swatch palette. With nothing editable selected it still works on a panel-local colour, so you can build swatches and gradients first.
It has three collapsible sections.
Color
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fill / Stroke | Choose which one the panel edits. |
| None / Solid / Linear / Radial | Set the target's paint type: no paint, a solid colour, or a linear or radial gradient. |
| Eyedropper | Pick a colour into the current target. On the comp it takes the exact value; anywhere else on screen it takes the colour you see. |
| Colour wheel | Pick hue, saturation and brightness. |
| Hex | Type a hex colour and press Enter. |
| R, G, B / H, S, B / A | Sliders for red, green, blue, hue, saturation, brightness and alpha. |
When the fill is a gradient, the Color section edits the selected gradient stop.
Gradient
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| linear / radial / path | Gradient kind. Path (strokes only) runs the gradient along the stroke from first point to last. |
| ⇄ | Reverse the gradient. |
| ＋ | Add a stop at 50%. |
| Remove | Remove the selected stop. |
| Gradient bar | Double-click to add a stop. Drop a swatch on it to add its colour. |
| Apply | Apply this gradient to the selected element's fill. |
Swatches
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| ＋ Solid | New swatch from the current colour. |
| ＋ Gradient | New swatch from the current gradient. |
| From Comp | Add every colour the open comp uses: shape fills, strokes and text, gradients included. |
| From File… | Pick an image; about 8 of its main colours join the palette. |
| Dice | Roll a random inspiration palette. |
| Import… | Import a palette file (.ase or .json). |
| Delete all | Delete every swatch. One undo restores them. |
| Swatch | Click to apply it to the active Fill/Stroke target. Drag it onto a gradient bar to add a stop. |
| Sync | On a selected swatch: assets using this swatch follow its edits. Synced swatches show a dot. |
| Apply / Delete | Apply the selected swatch to the current target, or delete it. |
| Looks: | One-click styles that restyle every element of the selected layer in one undo step: Blueprint (stroke-only light-cyan linework; pair it with a dark blue comp background such as #16233f) and X-Ray (translucent white fills with thin white edges; pair it with a black background). |
Swatches are saved in the project file.