23 Free Color Picker Tools for Web Designers
Back in the days when I started designing websites, I was clueless about how to get the color code (RGB or HEX color value) of any color.
I did a extensive research to find good color picker tools and finally found some. I picked some of them that can actually display the codes (HEX or RGB) of any color on your screen, most of the time I use such tools to get the HEX values of any color present on the screen but some of the tools that I have listed below can actually do more than that.
This particular post is for the beginners and intermediates, but I hope that experienced web designers will definitely share their thoughts about any particular color picker tools that they have used.
Pixie
Pixie is a utility made especially for webmasters and designers. It is a color picker with few extra goodies.
Run it, simply point to a color and it will tell you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV values of that color. You can then use these values to reproduce the selected color in your favorite programs. Pixie will also show the current coordinates of your mouse pointer.
ColorPic
Ever tried using a color picker on a high resolution monitor? It’s impossible. That’s why this color picker has a magnifier attached. Grab palettes of up to 16 colors at once and use four advanced color mixers to select a spectrum of possibilities.
gpick
A very nice article by Alexandre Prokoudine, describes almost all Gpick functionality
gColor 2
gcolor2 is a simple color selector that was originally based on gcolor, ported to use GTK+2, and now has a completely new UI.
Color Cop
Color Cop is a multi-purpose color picker for web designers and programmers. It identifies and represents colors in various hex color code formats. Simply drag the eyedropper control to any location on the screen and release. The hex color code for the selected color will be automatically copied to the clipboard. See other features.
Pipette
Each designer, webmaster or friend of good photos or pictures knows how important is choosing the right color for web pages, graphics, pictures and photos. The right color encourages a product with his image, creates recognizable value and shows something cheap or elegant.
ColorMania
Colormania is an advanced color picker utility, especially created for web-designers, graphic artists and application developers.
It supports various color models and is able to pick colours from anywhere on your screen. Accuracy on pixel level is even made easier with the built-in screen magnifier.
colortypist
colortypist allows you to type in a Color by its name (Red), Web/HTML code (#FF0000), RGB triplet (255,0,0) or Integer value (-65536) and see that Color fill your entire screen, in real-time, while you type.
ColorPix
ColorPix is a useful little color picker that grabs the pixel under your mouse and transforms it into a number of different color formats.
You can use the built-in magnifier to zoom in on your screen, click on a color value to copy it directly to the clipboard, and even keep ColorPix on top of all other apps and out of the way.
Color Selector
The Color Selector project has been OpenSourced. My former hosting provider, Hypermart, is discontinuing their free hosting service, so to prevent the loss of Color Selector, I have moved it to SourceForge. My website (KOY Software) will no longer be available after February 25th, 2004. This is the new Color Selector web site.
Colibri Mac
Open source your projects using Google Project Hosting
Google Project Hosting is a fast, reliable, and easy open source hosting service. Google Project Hosting gives you:
Instant Color Picker
It was a commercial product before. As of 2009, I’m the only developer left and I don’t have enough resources to support a commercial application. In addition to that, I think ICP is a cool product and deserves more popularity. So it is free now. Even for commercial purposes. If you enjoy using ICP please consider donating, so I can cover my hosting expenses. Thank you!
Pixeur
Never be curious about any color you see on your screen. With Pixeur you can easily view the color, RGB, Hex, and Long value of any color you see. Pixeur will also keep a history of all colors you have selected, so going back is as simple as choosing the color from the Color History list. The new Color Selector, Color Scheme, Advanced Color History tools, makes Pixeur a top in its class.
Visual Color Picker
Visual Color Picker is very easy to use and powerful RGB-HSV-HSL-CMYK-HEX color selector. The program allows you to easily capture color value from any position of the screen even if program does not have input focus. The program has small screen capture preview area. By clicking associated button, you will get the associated RGB value in the dialog. The RGB color is automatically translated to RGB, HSV, CMYK and HTML HEX values. The program has standard and custom color tables. Text-background preview allows you to see how two colors will look next to each. Visual Color Picker operates under Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me/ NT4.0/2000/XP/2003. Visual Color Picker has settings. You can specify custom formatting and assign hot key for it.
CPick
Program to get colors from your screen with the build in magnifier. Zoom 1 to 10. Modify colors with the RGB or HSV slide bars. Copy the color to the clipboard as Hex, Decimal, RGB or HSV value. Direct changing the RGB and HSV values. Store used colors on the visible stacks or add them to a color list visible in the color combo box, creating your own color lists for your projects. Copy the screen behind the magnifier to the clipboard as Bitmap. Save magnifier image as: Icon or Bitmap.
Hex Color Picker
Almost. A bug, which has been reported to Apple, prevents Hex Color Picker from reading or writing its settings when used in certain, “sandboxed” applications. (Mostly system-provided applications like TextEdit and Preview are “sandboxed”. Photoshop, Illustrator and Coda have no issues with this, for example.)
Additionally, during installation, getting to the Library folder in your home folder requires holding down the option/alt key and choosing Library from the Go menu, as the folder itself is hidden from view within the home folder.
HexColorPicker2
HexColorPicker is a plugin bundle for the Apple Color Picker.
As its name suggests HexColorPicker will produce a hexadecimal color code of the currently selected color.
But wait! It will do so much more. HexColorPicker will let you copy the currently selected color value as:
Just Color Picker
Graphic designers, digital artists and web-designers tend to look at things differently. They see the arrangement and colour scheme of things that mere mortals would just take for granted. Anything can be a piece of art or an inspiration, but it takes a discerning eye to really see it sometimes. While taking part in any computer routine, designers may see colours and colour combinations that they would like to use in their projects. With Just Color Picker, identifying the colours, picking, editing and combining them into beautiful colour combinations is a quick and simple job.
MouseZoom
MouseZoom is a nice but small utility. It zooms the current mouse position (50x) and shows the color value (RGB, HEX, HLS, CMYK) and the absolute and relative position of the point where the mouse is.
Pickard
Pickard is an open source color selection tool, licensed under the GNU General Public License, that has many features of the color pickers you can find in high-level image processing applications (like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or GIMP), its features includes:
ColSel
ColorManager
ColorPad
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