Being able to select the right colors is key in designing an effective and intriguing design, whether for the web or for print. If you’re able to achieve a good balance within your design, then it’ll communicate a stronger message much more easily to the users or readers because certain colors “activate” certain types of emotions.
If you’d like to read more about choosing the right color scheme and the psychology of colors, I invite you to read the following articles:
Color Combination Tools
Below we’ve compiled a list containing 20 Color Combination Tools for Designers. You can use this list to chose the tool that better fits your needs or that you’re most comfortable using.
Have we missed any? Let us know below!
Kuler
The web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community. Color Scheme Designer
Color Scheme Designer has been around for some time and was recently re-written and designed. It currently has great color space conversions, a preview pane, enhanced scheme creation, and a permanent URL of the schemes you create. It’s almost as if it were a hosting site for color schemes. Contrast-A: Find Accessible Color Combinations
This application allows you to experiment with various color combinations, review your colors accessibility, and create color palettes. Infohound Color Schemer
Infohound Color Schemer helps you find and test color schemes for whatever the reason may be. Features included allow you to configure the saturation and brightness, set the value for hue, and have your colors automatically matched for you. Check My Color
This tool lets you check the foreground and background of color combinations and gives you the option to determine whether the color variation is suitable for individuals with vision impairments. Toucan Color Palettes
Toucan allows you to choose up to 20 colors per palette using color association rules or an uploaded image, collaborate with other users, and import images from Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook. Hex Color Scheme Generator
The Hex Color Scheme Generator is a great tool to use if you want to create a beautiful and logical color scheme. It acts as an “advisor” for colors. You simply tell it which colors you’d like to use, and the app will generate the best results that match. Pictaculous
Pictaculous lets you upload your image and analyze its colors. This is ideal for the designer who creates several graphics at a time and would like to distinguish the looks without having to manually choose the best combining colors every time. Color Combinations and Color Schemes
This website gives you the option to generate limitless color combinations and schemes. If you already know at least one of the colors you plan on using, this site will take care of the rest. This is good for testing out colors in your code when you’re not sure what they are. I personally use this app on a regular basis. Daily Colorscheme
Daily Color Scheme serves its users a new color scheme every single day of the year. This can help you discover new color combinations that you hadn’t thought of before, also a great source for color inspiration. Color Palette Software
This is an advanced color palette tool that lets you create beautiful color schemes and custom themes. To begin working with colors you’ll have a scratch pad at your disposal. Before you begin using this app, make sure you try the scratch pad, it’s a feature that allows you to store all of the colors you’re working with for later use. You’ll also have a photo tool to extract colors, and an advanced color picker as well as a color theory wheel to give you the right type of inspiration. ColorExplorer
ColorExplorer takes working with digital colors to the next level. You can get right down to work with a colorful toolbox that lets you quickly and easily create, manage, and explore several color palettes. Kolur
Kolur is a simple yet, effective color application that lets you browse color palettes. The color combinations and schemes displayed within their gallery go further than the standard 3 color “rule”, it’s unique and leaves you open with several possibilities per combination. Color Hunter
Color Hunter allows you to upload your images and view the different colors that it contains. You can also browse through their current color schemes. Gray Bit
GrayBit is an online testing tool created to convert an entire web-page into the grey-scale so that you’re able to visually recognize certain contrasts between different elements in your layout. ColorZilla
ColorZilla was designed for Firefox, it gives you an advanced eyedropper, a helpful color picker, a useful palette viewer and other tools all within the reach of your browser. ColourMod
ColourMod was originally released as a web-based DHTML Dynamic Colour Picker. With the advancement and popularity of the Mac interface, ColourMod can now be found in your Dock once you’ve downloaded it. You’ll be able to examine colors on your desktop, websites, graphics, applications, and more! Color Grab
ColourGrab lets you type in the URL of any image online and this application will tell which are the most useful and best used colors for that specific image. You can link to your project images that are hosted online and veiw which are the best and most used colors within the images. ColorMunki
ColorMunki is an all-in-one color app that gives you complete color control of your color creation tools. You’re able to find, choose, and compare several different colors. Color Wheel Color Calculator
The Sessions educational Color Calculator is an interactive color wheel that allows any designer to select RGB, or CMYK colors for the creation of useful colors schemes. Sessions also claims to have the fastest color tool on the web. Test it out and lets us know what you liked and disliked about this app and any of the others as well!
