Whether you ’re creating a booklet in Apple ’s Pages or coding Web Sir Frederick Handley Page in a text editor , choose the staring combination of colors for your designing can be an intimidating process . Professional applications such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop have desegregate colour selector that help simplify the cognitive process . But they ’re not your only options . Mac OS X offers colour tools that can help anyone use color more in effect .

One of the most utilitarian is the Colors venire . Once you understand its secrets , you may use the Colors panel to observe inspiration , save swatches , and make usage colouring material palettes that you may use again and again .

Gaining access

From most Apple program ( admit Keynote and TextEdit ) , and from many other program that take advantage of the Colors control board , you reach the panel by beseech Command - shift - C. Some third - party applications do n’t support the Colors jury , but you could easily knead around this limitation — and make the panel accessible at any time — by writing a simple script .

Selecting colors

The Colors gore offers five color - pick modes , include a colour bicycle , luger , and predetermine palettes . You ’ll see them lean in the toolbar at the top of the windowpane . If you ’re brainstorming color , the semblance wheel is probably your best choice . Simply click anywhere in the wheel , and the selected colour look in the coloring bar ( see top screenshot ) .

But you ’re not limited to getting inspiration from the color wheel . you’re able to taste colors from anywhere on your covert by dawn on the magnifying - glass ikon ( locate beneath the menu bar ’s color - cycle icon ) . Your pointer will turn into a enceinte magnifying glass with a crosshair in the center . As you drag your mouse around the filmdom , the pixels under the crosshair are magnified . press a color to impart it to the control panel ’s color ginmill . Your pointer will forthwith come back to normal .

To save a coloration that appear in the coloring material bar , so you may access it again by and by , select the color legal community and drag the swatch to the storage-battery grid at the bottom of the windowpane . To erase a color , drop back a blank cell on top of it . If you fly the coop out of blank in the swatch grid , you may contribute more row ( up to 10 ) by drag the resize clit down .

Sampling an image for inspiration

Perhaps you need to create a color pallet that complement a exposure you project to use on the cover of a brochure . The Colors panel spend a penny this easy .

First , switch to the Image Palettes windowpane ( it ’s the fourth icon in the toolbar ) . Here you ’ll see colors arranged in a spectrum . To use a photo as your semblance author , enter the Palette pop - up menu and select New From File . Navigate to the pic you require to use , and tap Open . ( If you have an ikon open in another program , such as Preview or iPhoto , you’re able to copy the photo by urge Command - C. Then swop to the Colors board and choose New From Pasteboard in the Palette carte . ) The image then appears in place of the color spectrum .

you may add as many figure as you ’d care to the Image Palette . To get at previously imported images , start the Image pull - down menu and take the name of the file . If your figure has an unknown name — such as Img_0161 — you may quickly give it a more memorable name . Select the import filing cabinet from the Image drag - down menu , and then choose Rename from the Palette fare .

Once you ’ve import an double , you could use the cursor to try out colors , just as you would in the color roulette wheel . Drag the colour you like to the swatch grid .

Instant Color SchemeNeed a quick manner to retrieve the prevalent coloring in a photograph ? If you have Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements , start the filing cabinet in the program and select filter : Pixelate : Mosaic . Adjust the Cell Size lay until the ikon is reduced to just a few colors .

Do n’t have Photoshop ? If you ’ve installed Tiger ’s Developer tools ( found on the Mac OS X 10.4 initiation saucer ) , you’re able to do the same matter in Core Image Fun House ( see “ Tiger ’s hush-hush Tools,”Geek Factor , September 2005 ) . To reach the program , go to /Developer / Applications / Graphics Tools . choose the image you want to sample . contribute a Stylize : Pixellate effect and adjust the Scale slider to confine the colors . When you ’re done , save the pixelated image and spell it into the Colors panel ’s Image Palettes windowpane ( see bottom screenshot ) .

Saving a custom color palette

Once you ’ve launch a colour scheme you wish , why not save it so you could use it again and again — or perhaps even share it with coworkers ?

progress Your PaletteIn the Colors panel , swap to the Color Palettes window ( the third point in the toolbar ) . spread the List pull - down menu to see a list of the nonpayment color pallet . These include the traditional Apple list , a palette designed for software developers who want to match the OS X colour strategy , and a list of Web - dependable colors .

To make your own palette , prize New from the List menu . A new list entry , Unnamed1 , will seem . To give it a more meaningful name , blue-ribbon Rename from the List drag - down menu , move into a new name , and sink in on Rename .

You ’re now quick to work up your pallette . If you ’ve saved colouring material as swatch , simply drag the swatch from the swatch grid into the pallet tilt . you’re able to also use the magnification tool to pick out any color on your screen , and then drop behind the color from the color legal community into the palette list .

you may rename any color in the palette by pick out it and choosing Rename from the Color pull - down menu . For exemplar , if you be after to use one color for all of your newspaper headline , you might rename it Headline .

Share ItTiger store your custom color palette in the /your user folder / Library / Colors folder as a .clr Indian file . you could post this single file to other Mac users to permit them get at your color palette — for example , if you ’re all work on the same project . They just need to drag the file into the same location on their Macs .

Color companions

Apple ’s Colors panel offers five different coloration modes , but if that is n’t enough to satisfy your oculus for colour , have a look at these Web resources :

ColorBlender

This free online putz let you select a base color ; then it automatically make a palette of six matching colors . It ’s a great way to get prompt color inspiration .

ColourLovers

This situation lets you peruse interesting color combinations that others post . It ’s a great germ of colouring material inspiration and education . you could browse , make , and rate colors and palette .

Color Scheme Generator 2

This handy entanglement cock take on your base color and create color schemes based on one of five color - match method — let in Contrast , Triad , and Analogic . It also lets you preview how those colors will look to mass who have several dissimilar case of color blindness .

Tip

At first glance , it may look as though Microsoft Word does n’t support OS X ’s Colors panel . But it does . In Word ’s Formatting palette , choose More semblance from any Color pop - up menu ( for instance , under Font , Borders , or Shading ) . Word will then spread out the Colors panel and give you access to any custom colouration palettes you ’ve created .

[ Robert Ellisis a freelance author , a Mac fanatic , and an avid digital photographer . ]