Thursday, May 07, 2009

FREE color scheme creators

I’m always looking for free programs that I can share with you. However, just because an application is free or can do something cool doesn’t mean that it’s good. So I always test these applications for you before I recommend them so then can be a real value to you.
Getting color information
When creating something for the web, color is critical. Here are some free tools to select a color and get the information about a particular color.


In an earlier blog, I mentioned Instant Eye Dropper. After installing this free software you simply hover over anything on your screen to get the color information.
You might also try Pixie.
Pixie is a simple color picker application too. It also gives me the hexadecimal, CMYK or RGB color codes of whatever I choose.


Once you have that color information how about complimentary colors to go with that information? This could be useful for brochures, PowerPoint presentations, designing a website, or even in your home.
There are numerous free color scheme generators where you can specify a color then have an entire palette of complimentary colors automatically selected for you.
Here are a couple sites that will help you select complimentary colors.
http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html
http://www.colorjack.com/
http://kuler.adobe.com

Create a color scheme from a photo!

How about designing a color scheme from a photo? Color Scheme Generator allowed me to upload my photo then gave me the top choices for a color scheme. I also got the hexadecimal color code information with each of those colors too.

If that wasn't enough, I found I could just mouse click on anything in my uploaded photo and it gave me the color data. When I clicked on the yellow sign I found it's color data was #FCC222.

With this kind of information, now you can be the color expert!

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