I’ve put together a nice list of websites offering free color resources for the internet masses. Most of these sites offer some sort of online web application for you to use in your creating process, but they all offer something of value for the graphic designer, web designer, photographer, etc.
Daily Color Scheme
“Daily Color Scheme.com is all about color. Every day color. We serve a new colorscheme every day of the year, to keep the designers head fueled with inspirational and usable color schemes.
We try our best to make this website as usable and accesible as possible, we like to browse fast, not wasting any time.”
ColorSpire – Color Scheme Generator
“Choose a base color – The first step in designing your own color scheme is to choose a base color. The base color could be one of your favorite colors, a color depending on environmental conditions, a color that helps to convey the appropriate mood, or a color following trends.”
“Using the color wheel – With the color wheel, it’s easy to find analogous colors, complementary colors, triad or tertiary colors, etc. You may take advantage of the color wheel to choose harmonious colors that match your base color.”
“Create your color scheme – We provide a simple and easy to use online color schemes creator to help you create your own color scheme. With the flexible color picker and color wheel, you can easily create harmonious color schemes, to use in your web site or your working object.”
“The results – Our online color schemes creator enables you to preview your color combinations in real time and see if the colors works well together. Start using our online color schemes creator now.”
PaletteMan
“Palette Man is a color palette-generation program that’s geared toward web designers. You’re allowed to select 5 colors from the 216-color web-safe palette and see how they interact. Colors are like words; just as context can alter the meaning of a word or phrase, surrounding colors can make a central color look different to the human eye. Experiment and see what effects the colors have on one another.”
Easy RGB
This website offers many color services for the masses including a color calculator, monitor color calibration, color scheme creation, and more.
“Color calculator – Converts color data to different color standards (RGB, CMYK, L*ab, L*ch, L*uv, Hunter, XYZ etc.). All the math implemented in this calculators is available in the math/formulas page.”
“From RGB values to commercial tints – Matches your computer generated RGB values to color cards, paint lines, inks, fandecks, standards and more…
Helps you find a commercial product matching your computer generated colors. Also let you get cross-products matches of paint and ink products. Transforms “virtual” colors in “real world” references.”
“Create color harmonies – From your RGB colors it creates colors complements, harmonies and themes. It can be used to easily create a Web site color theme or to select good trim and accent colors for your home decorations.”
We recommend visiting the website for a complete overview of all services offered.
Colour Mod
“ColourMod originally made its debut as one of the most flexible, not to mention, good looking, DHTML Dynamic Color Pickers out there. Since then ColourMod has become even more robust, with room to expand beyond imagination.”
“Currently, ColourMod comes in many different juicy versions. Each version is tailored to fit your specific needs and desires. From colour conversions on your desktop, to colour picking on the web, there is something for you.”
Sherwin Williams
Yes, you didn’t read it wrong. The Sherwin Williams website has a robust and completely free to the public color tool to assist in helping you find a proper color palette.
Toucan Color Swatches
“Used alone or in conjunction with our other creation tools, Toucan gives you the features you need to inject color into your creative process.”
The web application that launches upon color creation is relatively stunning. They also offer other online tools such as image editing.
Color Munki
“ColorMunki is the industry’s hottest all-in-one color solution that delivers unparalleled color control and color creation tools for photo and design digital workflows.”
December.com
This website is more about offering helpful links, tutorials, and reference charts than anything else, but the website is still incredibly helpful and deserves a spot in this article.
very useful color tools. thanks for compiling them. ;)
No problem, thank you for reading my articles and commenting on them :)