About Agave

Agave is a lightweight application that is all about finding the right color combinations. It offers a number of different options to find just the right one in an easy-to-understand user interface. There are also other useful features that can spur inspiration or keep productivity-minded people happy. For a relatively simple application, it’s quite effective.

Installation

Installation should be easy as usual with any other Linux apps. Just search for Agave in your distribution’s package manager, as all major distributions except Fedora should carry it. Fedora used to offer Agave, but the package has been orphaned at the time of writing, but hopefully that will change. Once the download and installation has completed, go ahead and launch it from the Graphics section in your menu/dash/etc.

Features

When Agave launches, you’ll see a small window that packs most of the application’s features. Most importantly, in the middle you’ll see the color combinations that are suggested by Agave, the main purpose of the app.

You can change the main color by picking a color from the palette towards the bottom of the window. Agave also offers multiple palettes, so you’ll have more quick choices for certain colors.

If you want all the colors of the rainbow, you’ll need to click on the little button just below the first color box. Then you’ll be presented with Gnome‘s color picker window so that you have access to all the colors in existence.

Agave also offers plenty of different combinations. For me, some of them don’t mean much, but to those who know a lot more about art will surely find all combinations very useful. It includes complements, split-complements, triads, tetrads, analogous, and monochromatic.

Across the top of the window, you’ll find forward and backward buttons, as well as a random button to get a random color in case you don’t know which one to pick. Going farther along, you’ll also find four buttons that change some properties about the selected color. Two are responsible for increasing or decreasing the brightness of the color, while the other two are responsible for increasing or decreasing the saturation. This is really handy because you can easily make adjustments to the color without having to handpick a new color that is similar to what you’re targeting.

Last but not least, you can save colors as favorites, so that you can quickly and easily go back to certain colors that you like or want to remember. It is a much better solution to hunting down the color you are looking for.

Conclusion

Agave is a great tool for its purpose. The simplicity is much appreciated, and it does exactly what it’s meant to do. It seems to be extremely stable, with no need for added features, as there haven’t been any new releases in a while. Either way, that doesn’t diminish the quality of Agave.

What’s your opinion of Agave? Would it be helpful in whatever projects you have? Know of a better app? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Eyedroppers and color pickers can work outside a mammoth graphic tool like Photoshop and CorelDraw. Most of these tools are small and portable. But today, we will diverge from desktop color picking tools and look at five browser based ones.

After all, a graphic artist can take his inspiration from anywhere…and if it’s anywhere online, a few very useful Firefox add-ons could come real handy.

ColorZilla

This advanced eyedropper tool for Firefox is top of the heap as it shows the maximum number of downloads and a good bunch of good reviews. As you can see in the above screen, ColorZilla has quite a few functional features like an Advanced Eyedropper, Color Picker, Page Zoomer, Palette Browser, and a CSS Gradient Generator.

• The Color Picker dialog box is very similar to that in Photoshop.
• In case you have a problem picking up a colored pixel, you can zoom a webpage to a maximum of 1000% and use the eyedropper to pick up the color of the pixel. Auto-copy of pixel values to the clipboard makes it easy to paste it in your HTML editor or elsewhere.
• You can use the Palette Browser to pick up colors from the different palettes available and also save user created ones.

PixelZoomer

PixelZoomer is a neat Firefox add-on that takes a screenshot of the visible area of your webpage and gives you a few pixel mapping tools to work with the image in a separate window (or tab).

• A selection tool helps to select an area and estimate precise measurements
• You can zoom the screenshot to 3200% and pick up the color of any pixel with the eyedropper tool.
• The eyedropper tool can pick up color values and copy the HEX code into any other application.
• You can use it as a simple screenshot tool as it allows you to save the image as a PNG file.

Rainbow Color Tools

Rainbow Color Tools is actually a set of four powerful tools. For a web designer, the tools are very intuitive as they are almost one or two click operations.

• Inspector – You can move your mouse over any pixel on a webpage and get a preview of the color and the HEX values (you can change this in the settings). A single click copies the pixel values to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere.
• Picker – The color picker helps you pick up HSV and RGB values, and the typeface of any element on the webpage. The more precise pixel tool helps you take the color values of any image pixel.
• Website Analyzer – This is a quick tool which gives you the color scheme from the current website’s images and CSS. You can choose to copy or save the color values.
• Library – if you choose to save any of the colors you pick up, they enter the library where you can view them again in the color picker and reuse them in any other application.

Firefox Add-ons Gallery gives you two more color picking tools (Firepicker and Rainbowpicker) based around a simple color picker dialog box. These three Firefox add-ons are good allied options for the web designer who wants to quickly pick up colors while browsing the web. My pick of the three is Rainbow Color Tools for its ease of use and HEX value copying mechanism. Which one is yours? Do you have at least one of these three tools in your list of add-ons?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Two examples from the top of my head – my sister used it to pick up a color for her nail polish buy and I once used it to pick just the right shade for a paint job.

Those of us who work on the web know about the uses of color picking tools. It does drop the pain away from a color job. Follow the first link and take a dekko at the comments section. There are quite a few takers for a color matching tool.

So having a few free options for color picking tools wouldn’t do any harm to your palette I guess? Here are three free applications for spotting the right color on the screen. The three color pickers have a common thread ““ they can be used to pick colors from anything that’s open on the desktop. Take your pick.

Pipette

You will usually find a pipette in the chemistry lab. On your desktop, it gives you access to the color value of what’s beneath its cross-hairs. That means anywhere on the screen, on your browser or in any other application. There’s a lot  of “˜user friendliness’ in the way it handles colors.

It has just one button. Press it (but don’t release the left button) and pass your mouse over the color. You can see the color in the box. To lock the color, just release your mouse. Similarly you can add more colors and build up a color list.

Pipette also supports a lot of standards or color models (RGB, CMY, CMYK, HSV, TColor and XYZ0). Color models are nothing but theoretical descriptions of colors using certain numeric values. You can build your own shades and tones by changing the color values. All color models automatically change to reflect the new values. Copy the value to the clipboard with a single click on the Copy icon.

Pipette is a free 377KB download and does not require an installation. It is supported on all Windows versions.

ColorPic

ColorPic has one feature that the last color picking tool lacks. It comes with a magnifier that helps us to go for a color a few pixels wide. Is it overkill? Not really”¦if you have an eye for the details. You can pick color from any part of the desktop too.

ColorPic displays Decimal and Hexadecimal value for the colors picked. Similar to Pipette you can build your color list (it’s called Chips here) up to 16 colors. You also get controls like sliders, arrow keys and the mouse to build your own colors by mixing the color values. Copy the values to any other application with a click.

For a web designer, picking a color and bringing it to the nearest web safe value is easy with the WebSnap button. ColorPic is designed to pick up color in the tiniest pixel. The magnifier and the point size slider help in fine color sampling.

ColorPic ver.4.1 is a free 540KB download and requires an installation. Softpedia mentions a portable version. It is supported on Win 2000, Win XP and Vista.

ColorMania

ColorMania is very similar to ColorPic with a magnifier feature that lets you pick a color from any spot on the screen. Though, it uses an Eyedropper to grab a color.

Again, you can change RGB values with the sliders. Using a dropdown, you can get the color values according to a lot of standards including Photoshop. It allows you to save and load a number of palettes.

ColorMania ver.3.0 is a free 676KB download and requires an installation. It is supported on Win 2000, Win XP and Vista.

Color picking tools are really very simple. For a web designer, the number of color models a color picker supports is of paramount importance. But for the rest who just want to pick a color from the screen, a program which can do it with a single click will do. On both counts, these three pass muster.

If you are interested in a Firefox add-on, there’s ColorZilla but it works only within the browser.

If you are picky about your colors, which one will get your vote? One of these three or do you have another favorite?

Image Credit: HBuzacott

Up until now, every time I have to design something, anything, I automatically reach for my trusty old Color Index book. If not for the convenient vinyl colors in this little book, I probably would have destroyed the little bugger a long time ago from wear and tear.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around the net. I’ve seen all the little color pickers and color schemers, and they’re useful but theres always something missing. None of the color schemers I’ve seen have everything.

This awesome view is what you will see when you first load up Color Scheme Designer. At first glance, it seems daunting but when you dive into it, you quickly get a feeling for the raw power of this app and how really simple it is to use; a marvel of UI.

First and foremost, you want to decide how many base colors you’re allowed to work with and then take it from there. The top left corner has the color formulas you will start from. Initially, you can choose one color and the app breaks it out into its non-clashing, complementing counterparts, as shown above. At most there can be four colors but the following depicts the initial variations, starting from my favorite shade of blue, where the black dot is on the color circle.

This results in the following color breakout schemes, which in and of themselves are useful, and with the HEX values immediately selectable, copyable and pastable. Color hex values are also accessible via mouseover:

But that’s not even all! The application allows for custom controlling of the resulting color scheme, as well as at-a-glance color value table, Voila:

And now, the defining feature this app provides is the fully interactive light and dark page previews, which I’ve generated from the Triad version of my color scheme based on my original choice of my favorite blue, in a completely eye-candy friendly application of color theory:

That’s still not the end of the features this app provides! Most notably is the ability to simulate various color deficiencies for accessibility, as well as the ability to export HTML/CSS, XML, and text as noted above.

I hope this app helps everyone out there as much as it has helped me. I realize that inspiration is in very short supply these days, and my trusty old color index has provided me countless blasts of inspiration. In light of that, this app is ground-breaking in that arena and will provide you with blasts of inspiration as well.

Are there any better color schemes or pickers that you have used or prefer? Let us know your choices in the comments. If you have any questions about color and color shemes, please add them into the comments as well.

No matter the job scape or your skill level, you will surely be able to find the following free applications useful and effective for the development and creation of websites with your Mac computer. Without further ado, here are 6 Excellent Mac Apps for Web and Graphic Design.

Linotype Explorer

Linotype Explorer is an incredible font management app created for Mac users. You can use this app to install and “test” out new fonts on your PC. The selection of appealing fonts for your site is vital; this art of text is called Typography.

FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer claims to be “The world’s most advanced online image editor”. It offers completely free access to numerous features such as photo effects, graphics, shapes, morphing, and the creation of collages. You can also integrate and share your art with social sites like MySpace, Flickr, Facebook, and more. This can be an important app if the site you are creating is going to use apps.

Colorate

With Colorate you can create harmonized color palettes along with color schemes. Generate these palettes for images, photographs and more.

Simple CSS

With Simple CSS you can create Cascading Style Sheets from scratch or edit them right from the comfort of your desktop. Update styles on multiple pages all at once and reduce the data transfer usage on your page for faster loads.

Blender

Blender, open source software that allows you to create 3D animation with interactive playback leaves you with the option to optimize the style of your site with a few graphics. You can create animations with shades of colors, glossy features, soft shadows, and advanced rendering features.

JAlbum

JAlbum is a very useful app that allows you to create stylish photo galleries to publish on the web. All you have to do is simply drag selected folders into a pane where any images contained within the folder will automatically be arranged into a photo gallery. You can add several different themes and templates to enhance the appearance of your gallery, later then gain the HTML code and publish the complete gallery onto the web.

Conclusion

When designing why not take comfort with the facilitation of apps for your Mac that will allow you to boost your productivity and create better looking graphics or sites? The above 6 applications empower you with features that can meet your designing needs and make designing fun.

Which of the above apps have you used or plan to? Please MakeUseOf the comment box below and share your thoughts with us!

Let’s search the web for an autumn-like palette (yellow, red, brown) using the following 3 services. Let’s see how the search results are like.

1. PicItUp

PicItUp is a visual image search engine that combines word-based with color based search.

Test it: search for [autumn] and choose any color from the left column (I chose yellow). Now let’s look at the results:

Impressive, isn’t it?

What the tool lacks: you can’t combine several colors to refine your search (for example you can’t search for a yellow-red palette) – you are only able to search for one color.

2. Multicolr

Unlike the above one, with the Flickr-based Multicolr (already mentioned at Make Use Of) service you can combine as many colors as you want.

Test it: choose several colors and watch how the image list changes with each color added (I combined red and yellow):

What the tool lacks:you can’t combine word-based and color-based searches with this service. You are limited with playing with colors only.

3. Etsy

Etsy, an online shop of handmade products, has developed color search for their own product database.

Test it: It’s real fun to play with. Just browse your mouse across the screen and watch various colors and same-palette products pop up.

What the tool lacks: here you are unable to either set the color option or the search term. Nonetheless the tool is such fun to use that you definitely need to try it out.

Now, what do you think could be possible practical applications for these tools?

Would you use them on a regular basis or are they just for fun?

There are several ways that I know of to do that. The first is to open up a program and seek out its color matching dialogue and apply what I call the “gosh, that looks close enough!” method to pick out a color. Another way is to copy the item that has the color I want by hitting “Print Screen” and then opening Paint, pasting in the item from the clip board, zooming in on it and then use the ‘Pick Color’ tool. At that point I can copy down the HEX code and I am good to go.

Obviously the first method is not very exact, and the second method requires a number of steps. If you need to do this a few times a day, one heck of a lot of time gets wasted!

So, to my great delight, Instant Eyedropper reduces all of that to one click, for free!

Once you install the free download, a new icon appears in the system tray that looks like this:

To use the tool you simply left click on the icon and then drag the mouse to the color that you want and voila! The hex code appears in the tool window. Release the mouse button and the code is now in your clipboard. Now you can return to your project and using the PhotoShop (or another graphics program) color picker tool, just drop in the code and you are done. You’ll have the exact color match.

A simple set of options is available if you right click the icon.

As you can see, you can choose from HTML, Hex, Delphi Hex, VB Hex, RGB and HSB formats.

I think that this is a really great time saver and you sure can’t beat the price!

Do you know of any other similar color tools?

(By) Jerry Kidd is a California Real Estate Broker, blogger, educator and author of RealtyTechBytes