DigitalColor Meter: Finding On Screen Color Values

December 10th, 2006 at 2:00 PM - Tips by Jeff Gamet

If you find a color you want to duplicate from a Web page, in a graphic, or anywhere on your Macis display, you donit have to resort to applications like Adobe Photoshop to ferret out what the color values are. Mac OS X includes a handy tool called DigitalColor Meter that displays the color values for anything you can point your cursor at.

You can find DigitalColor Meter hiding in Applications/Utilities. Once you launch it, you can see the average numerical value for the color thatis under your mouse pointer as either RGB, CIE, or Tristimulus. Just use the pop-up menu in the DigitalColor Menu window to switch between the formats.

DigitalColor Meter shows you the average color for the area around your mouse pointer. If you want to be more selective, slide the Aperture Size to the left. You can reduce the aperture so much that you are sampling individual pixels, which is useful if you want a specific color out of a blend or gradation.

DigitalColor Meter isnit a replacement for the tools in professional design applications, but is does make it easy to find color values in a snap.

This Quick Tip was adapted from The Designeris Guide to Mac OS X.

<!--#include virtual="/includes/newsite/series/quicktip.shtml"-->