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[Small detour to talk about grays]. Xara has a range of 8 gray shades of black--10% through 90%. These grays are perfectly neutral and have absolutely no hue (color). The chart above shows two wide bars of 40% and 80% black or neutral gray. At the top of the illustration is a rainbow range of hues. Above each of the gray bars is a corresponding set of hues that are the same value (amount of light or dark) but with very low color saturation and appear to be almost gray. We will be using a range of muted colors in the 245 Hue area to create a rich dark gray color for the control panel. Trust me on this one, it will look better, richer, and more believable.

Draw a rectangle that covers the entire area of the guides. (525 x 350 pixels). Apply a Linear fill using the same colors shown above. See what a rich gray color this produces!

NEW USERS: Press Ctrl e to open the Color Editor (or click the small color wheel icon to the left of the screen palette of colors). Select the rectangle with the Fill Tool and click and drag from one corner to the other to create a Linear (gradient) fill. Click one of the end control handles (the small boxes), select HSV Color Model from the drop down list of color models, and enter the three values in the three text entry boxes on the Color Editor. Click on the opposite control point and enter the other three values.

Select the rectangle with the Selector Tool then press Ctrl c to copy the rectangle to the clipboard (or Edit > Copy).

One-by-one, select the circles (except the ones shown in blue on the row of circles) and press Shift Ctrl a (or Edit > Paste Attributes). This takes whatever attributes that apply to the object in the clipboard (in this case the Linear fill) and applies these attributes to the selected object. Amazing how 3D and round the three buttons on the bottom look with just this simple fill.

Save your file and take a short break.

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