a) Andrew Mundi - Web Color Theory
b) Sessions.edu - Color Calculator
c) Color-Wheel-Pro
d) ColorImpact
a) Andrew Mundi - Web Color Theory
http://www.mundidesign.com/
Free
Andrew Mundi's Web Color Theory is an effective color matching
and selection tool targeted mostly at Webmasters and non-
designers working with colors. It has three different operating
modes.
The first mode allows to pick and select colors from a Web-safe
palette. For each one hexadecimal and RGB codes are provided.
The second mode provides three color matching boxes
allowing you to experiment with two or thee-color combinations.
The third mode provides a sample Web page on which you can drag
and drop individual colors on each of its content components
(title, background, navigation, text, etc.).
Recommended.
b) Sessions.edu - Color Calculator
http://www.sessions.edu/ilu/
Free
Not easy to get to but incredibly valuable and beautifully
designed, this interactive Color Calculator allows you to find
perfect color combinations in a snap. An effective color wheel
provides you with access to the full color spectrum and it
provides several mathematical models to find perfect color
complements. Sample combinations are interactively displayed
and RGB, CMYK and Hexadecimal codes for each color are
available for exporting to other tools.
A great and easy-to-use tool that makes finding perfect color
matches as easy as possible. It might be much more difficult
for you to decide which one of the infinite possible
combinations you prefer.
The only weakness in this tool is its inability to allow the
direct input of a pre-selected color by way of specific
RGB/CMYK/Hex codes. If you have already a precise color you
want to start with, you have a hard time working with this
tool.
To access the color calculator go to:
http://www.sessions.edu/ilu/
and click on the elephant displayed on the top left area of the
page.
Highly recommended.
c) Color-Wheel-Pro
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/
Free to try
Designed by Nicole Ross out of pure personal need, Color Wheel
Pro is an application that enables you to interactively create
various types of colour schemes and preview them on real-world
examples like corporate identities, web sites and logos.
The preview provided is real-time: when adjusting the color
scheme, you can see your changes on the available samples
immediately.
The approach utilized is the same one used by Sessions.edu
Color Calculator. An interactive color wheel provides access to
perfect mathematical color combinations. You can then select to
save and "preview" different color "presets" applied
to the several sample designs offered.
Color Wheel Pro includes all the classic color schemes:
Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, Split Complementary,
Triadic, and Tetradic. It is also possible to create custom, or
so-called "freeform" color schemes.
No, it is not possible to load your own designs and see the
color combinations applied to them. Even though that would be a
fantastic thing to do, the technicalities of it make it almost
an impossible proposition.
Among the best things you will find inside this tool, is a well
written help file containing a lot of useful information about
color and its characteristics. By itself, this makes the price
of purchasing Color Wheel Pro worthwhile.
One area where Color Wheel Pro needs some serious improvement is
its ability to allow the user to easily view and export color
codes and to input them through numeric values if needed.
This is a very useful and easy-to-use tool. You can easily try
it out by downloading a free 30-day evaluation at:
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/downloads/
color-wheel-pro.exe
(1.7 MB)
Color Wheel Pro costs USD $ 39.95
Recommended.
d) ColorImpact
http://www.tigercolor.com/
Free to try
Here is the Rools-Royce of color matching tools.
ColorImpact is the best professional tool available today for
creating harmonious color schemes.
ColorImpact offers in one tool all of the best features you
can get from all the other color matching tools available
today. It is intuitive, reliable, performing and fully featured.
With its highly visual user interface, ColorImpact brings
effective color theory into action at the click of your mouse.
ColorImpact is targeted at professional multimedia and Web
designers, but it can be easily mastered also by novices and
beginners.
Many color formulas are already built-in and include triads,
complements and analogous colors. You can even design your own
custom color formulas to explore advanced or alternative color
combinations.
Color schemes can be exported as Photoshop palettes,
as CSS files or simply copied to the clipboard and pasted into
your favorite design application.
ColorImpact offers many advanced features which will make the
joy of any computer-based designer. These include:
a) The quality and variety of interactive test patterns made
available
b) The "variation" palette feature allowing you to
explore variations of the current color palette. See how your
color scheme would look if you make the colors lighter,
brighter, darker, more saturated, less saturated, warmer or
cooler.
c) The undo feature which goes back 100 steps.
d) A Color Formula Designer facility allowing you to create custom
color combinations.
e) An integrated color picker allowing precise sampling of color
references from images, Web pages or other documents.
The program includes many features for quick access from
Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, FrontPage and other
applications.
Colorimpact costs USD $ 44.95.
A Feature tour is accessible at:
http://www.tigercolor.com/Features1.htm
You can download a 14-day free trial at:
http://www.tigercolor.com/Download.htm
Must have.
Editor's comment:
What developers like Color-Wheel-Pro Nicole Ross could do, is
to design a tool that allows the user to design a simple layout
with pre-packaged but modifiable components and then to try out
color combinations on this.
At the next level of sophistication, the design support tool
could "scan" your prototype document and create a dummy layout
page that reflects the generic components you have used and
their sizes and positions. A big title in the top center, two
bars of colors at the bottom, three columns of text and a
figure in the middle, etc. Once the dummy layout is prepared,
testing and trying out new color combinations would become
quite a fascinating task.
You can read this article in the original issue of MasterView.
Recommended readings:
Setting the Mood with Color by Sean Glithero
Color My World by Molly E. Holzschlag
Color Design for the Web by Vaishali Singh
