Best Free Color Picker
Thu, 11/06/2008 - 09:22 — Jojoyee
Color Archiver is another alternative with a small interface. It provides RGB, Hex and web safe color codes but without CMYK color space. A color grabber, active color palette and RGB sliders are included.
Just Color Picker also features a small interface. It supports RGB, HTML Hex and HSB/HSV/HSL color codes. The 3x/9x/15x zoom helps you pinpoint a color specifically.
If you need CMYK color space, ColorMania will be a good choice. It supports CMYK in addition to RGB and Hex codes in various modes.
Alternatively Pixeur can be used to support CMYK color space, in addition to RGB, HSB and Hex color values. This program is automatically set on top of other windows. It has a color grabber, magnifier, color mixer, color scheme and a slider.
If you are looking for more complicated interface, Visual Color Picker can be considered. It supports RGB, HSL and CMYK color codes with complete sliders and 2D coloer mixers.
It takes up a lot of your screen space compared with other programs. However, you can minimise or close the preview or zoom windows when they are not in use.
A color picker allows you to pick a color on your screen and get its color codes, helpful and convenient for editing an image, programming, writing HTML language or setting up a web page, etc.
There are many free color pickers available, but only a few are short listed here after evaluation based on the following features:
- Support color codes
- RGB (Red, Green and Blue)
- Hex (hexadecimal in HTML mode, etc)
- HSL, HSV, HSI or HSB (Hue, Saturation, Lightness/Value/Intensity/Brightness)
- CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/Black)
- Take up a small screen area with on-top setting
- Provide useful features including
- a grabber (or eyedropper) to easily pick and copy a color
- a magnifier too see precisely a color to pick
- a color mixer to adjust colors
- a color pallete to re-use picked colors
Color Cop impressed me with its combination of simplicity and effectiveness. It comes with a compact and powerful user interface, taking up a small space of your screen. A color grabber is provided to drag and drop at any pixel of the screen, and RGB and Hex codes are presented instantly.
At the front interface, it has a built-in magnifier and an active color palette. To adjust a picked color, click at the ‘custom’ button and get the Windows’ default color mixer. With a right click at the interface, it offers a menu with extra features. In this way, the interface is cleverly made small but powerful.
For the extra features, it provides web-safe color, display color reverses, random colors, conversion to grayscale, additional hex codes, application options and settings, etc. The only drawback is that CMYK color space has yet to be developed in a newer version.
Color Archiver is another alternative with a small interface. It provides RGB, Hex and web safe color codes but without CMYK color space. A color grabber, active color palette and RGB sliders are included.You can name the color you pick and save it in a collapsible color table, along side with a built-in web color table.
Similar to Color Cop, Color Archiver supports a Windows' default color mixer, but it lacks a magnifier.
Just Color Picker also features a small interface. It supports RGB, HTML Hex and HSB/HSV/HSL color codes. The 3x/9x/15x zoom helps you pinpoint a color specifically.RGB and HSV sliders are included in a collapsible lower section. Picked colors are presented in a color palatte with codes indicated, and allowed to save in a normal text file. However, Just Color Picker use a hot key to pick a color, instead of using a grabber which is more handy.
Just Color Picker is a portable application and can be run directly from a USB stick. No installation is required.
If you need CMYK color space, ColorMania will be a good choice. It supports CMYK in addition to RGB and Hex codes in various modes. ColorMania has a color grabber, magnifier, mixer and sliders for RGB and HSV. It provides a color palette for picked colors and allows saving. Predefined HTML colors are ready for use.
Compared with other programs, it takes up a slightly larger screen space as none of its modules are collapsible.
Alternatively Pixeur can be used to support CMYK color space, in addition to RGB, HSB and Hex color values. This program is automatically set on top of other windows. It has a color grabber, magnifier, color mixer, color scheme and a slider.Pixeur keeps a history of all colors you have selected, and allows saving for future reference.
With a collapsible section for color scheme, it takes up about the same screen space as ColorMania.
If you are looking for more complicated interface, Visual Color Picker can be considered. It supports RGB, HSL and CMYK color codes with complete sliders and 2D coloer mixers.Visual Color Picker has a separate window for zoom and color preview, in which the programming codes are even shown.
It takes up a lot of your screen space compared with other programs. However, you can minimise or close the preview or zoom windows when they are not in use.ColorPic also comes with a complicated interface supporting RGB, HSV and CMYK codes.
To adjust a picked color, you can use the built-in slider directly with four advance color mixers.
In addition to sample color palettes, you can save your picked colors as a color palette for future edit. However, ColorPic takes up about the same screen space as Visual Color Picker if sections are not collapsed.
Sometimes you find it clumsy to use ColorPic just to pick a color. You need to select a blank chip, move your cursor to a desired pixel of the screen and press Control-G. It looks like pressing Control-G is also compulsory after you select a blank chip unless you click at a grabbed chip.
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ColorCop 5.4.3
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Color Archiver 1.1
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Just Color Picker 1.11
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ColorMania 2.7
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Pixeur 3.1.0.3
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ColorPic 4.0
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This software category is maintained by volunteer Jojoyee. Registered site visitors can contact him by clicking here.
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Check this one, it's a good one too :
ColorPix at http://www.colorschemer.com/colorpix_info.php
ColorPix has a small user interface but it lacks quite a lot of features such as a color grabber, color mixer, slider, color palette, etc., as compared to those short listed.
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