Exchanging Color Values between Max and Photoshop

This is something I figured out a few years ago and it has saved me a lot of time. Max's 'Color Selector' uses values from '0.0' to '100'. '0' is the same as '0' in the 0-255 scale and '1.0' is equal to 255. This makes exchanging colors between programs that use the more widely used 0-255 system a bit cumbersome. After a search I found a tip explained that by simply multiplying the 255 by the Max decimal value you will arrive at the 0-255 value. For example, a Max value of .655  multiplied by 255 equals an RGB value of 167.

I've found an easy way to just grab colors and have the values without any math or calculators. This works better if you have two monitors but will work with one monitor if you minimize Max so that you can see Photoshop underneath. The Max 'Color Selector' has an eyedropper icon. Click it so that it is active then click it again and hold the 'LMB' (left mouse button) down as you drag off of it. Now any color you drag over becomes selected in the Max 'Color Selector' and the typical RGB value is converted and displayed in Max's RGB fields using the 0.0 - 1.0 ranges. When you let the button go over a color, you have that color.

What's also cool is that Photoshop's eyedropper works the same way. If you have a color in Max just click the eyedropper in Photoshop and move the cursor into an open file. Hold 'LMB' as you move off of it. Drag over a color in Max and the color will be placed into Photoshops foreground color complete with the standard RGB 0-255 value.

What's also handy is that if the 'Color' panel (F6 in CS4) is open in Photoshop, you can see the values change as you drag over different colors. Play with it a bit and you'll find it a very handy way to move colors around. Don't forget that in Photoshop you can go into 'Preferences' and set the RAM usage to something very low if necessary should you not have a great deal of RAM to give away by having both programs open.