Using Director > Sprites > Using sprite inks > About Darken and Lighten inks |  |

About Darken and Lighten inks

Darken and Lighten inks provide a great deal of control over the RGB properties of a sprite. You use them to create color effects in sprites varying from the subtle to the surreal.

Darken and Lighten both change how Director applies the foreground and background color properties of a sprite. Darken makes the background color equivalent to a color filter through which the sprite is viewed on the Stage. Lighten tints the colors in a sprite lighter as the background color gets darker. For both inks, the foreground color is added to the image to the degree allowed by the other color control. Neither ink has any effect on a sprite until you change the foreground or background color from the default settings of black and white.

Darken and Lighten are especially useful for animating unusual color effects. Because the Foreground and Background color properties of the sprite control the effects, you can animate color shifts to create dazzling effects without having to manually edit colors in a cast member. See Tweening other sprite properties.