Are you looking for a color picker, color palette tool, or other color tool to help you with your DIY designs? For DIY designers, we’ve rounded up 4 ways to find the best color picker and color palette tool.
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Ready to color? Let’s take a look at 4 DIY design tools you can’t buy without right now. Two awesome color picker tools, a color palette creation tool and a third amazing tool for Color Inspiration (Spades!).
The best color tools available right now for DIY designs
Add this color tool to your toolkit!
1. Color Picker Tool – Eyedropper
For a long time this has been my favorite Color Picker Tool. Many exist, and I have tried many of them. But this color picker is my choice. google chrome eyedropper tool. I started using this tool when I couldn’t easily get color from “inside” my favorite DIY design tool.
Now it’s still good to use, but if you don’t have 2 on this list, you may not use it. You should use it a lot (hello, this is Canva’s new color picker!). But what I like about this tool is that it works with any website.
can catch Google Chrome extension here.
I wrote about this color picker a while ago., I’m sorry* I wish the color picker tool would be added to my favorite design tools as part of its functionality.
The eyedropper color picker lets you pick a color from any page on the web and keeps a history of your colors so you can check back when you need to find a recent color. Being able to bring color from any web page is handy because you never know where your inspiration will come from! This is useful for inspiration, title color matching, etc.
By sampling a color from a web page with a color picker, you can get the hexadecimal code of that color and enter it into DIY design software that doesn’t have its own tools. That is, in this case SteelBlue with the hex code of #42a6c2.
It’s that simple! If you are a Chrome user, Download the app now – Very handy for making DIY designs in any DIY graphic software.
- Picmonkey is one of the few tools that has this feature built in. Now, as you can see in the next recommended tool, Canva also has one (Hooray!). Read on to check it out.
2. Canva’s Color Picker
This is the color picker included with Canva software. The cool thing is that you can use this feature not only in Canva designs or elements, but also in other web pages. Since I always have Canva open, I’ve noticed that I’m using it more and more (via the eyedropper tool).
You simply:
1. On the Color Palette tab, select the Color Picker tool.
2. Hover your mouse over a web page, element, or photo.
3. Click to save the HEX code.
4. Go back to the color picker and get the HEX code. Use it in Canva’s Color Palette tab to edit your designs or record HEX codes for use elsewhere. Here are the tools in action:
3. Color Palette Generator Tool
One of my favorite DIY design tool features is the color palette generator tool. You can drag color from a photo or image. This will save you time when thinking about colors to use for text or titles around your images. Here are two examples of the color palette generator tools I use regularly. Built-in features of Easil and Canva (also introduced here and here).
(a) Canva’s color palette creation tool
Canva’s color palette generator is more recent and fun to use. If you click on the color tool on a design with an image, it will look something like this:
You can grab the color right away. In this example, the colors of lemon…yellow, green and brown are taken directly from the image. Use it as inspiration for your title/text, branding, or an entire design series.
As you can see, Canva also includes brand kit colors, logo colors, and document colors as other options in the color palette.
(a) Easil’s color palette generator tool
Other tools with similar features are DIY design tool, Easil. Here’s a snapshot of what Easil’s color palette tool looks like when I click on it while working on a template with a photo.
Click the color palette on the taskbar to display the following options:
- background color – Based on the background color of the design you are working on.
- template color – The color of the template you are working on.
- brand color – Entered into Easil’s branded kit.
- image color – Taken from images included in the design… The color palette has been created!
You can use this tool to find a color to use for a title or subheading (or text you want to “pop out” and stand out). I like the fact that Easil intuitively draws out a nice range of colors to choose from for every image, so you can count on it every time you use it.
I use the color palette generator in my DIY designs every day. It’s just as important as the color picker, so adding it to your toolkit is fun!
Now let’s take a look at the last color tool resource. It’s really fun:
4. Canva’s Color Inspiration Tool
This last “tool” I want to mention has become one of my most used resources in recent weeks. It pairs perfectly with the color picker and color palette creation tool.
I often have a hard time coming up with new color palette ideas or colors for non-designers to use in their designs. This resource has made it very easy.
A “color” resource in Canva. You can find it here..
Canva has four color tools. I mostly use the first two, but having them all in my toolkit comes in handy.
1. Color Palette Generator
Worke color palette generator This is a version of Canva’s Color Palette Generator mentioned above. You can use this tool to upload any photo and Canva can generate a suggested color or tint from that photo.
You can find direct links to the tools here..
The cool part is that it’s standalone as a separate tool outside of the main Canva software. You can use the colors you create to easily add code to your designs in visual design tools or Canva.
2. Color Palette Ideas
teahis creation color palette idea Search for parameters such as color, theme, or keyword Of the four Canva Color tools, this is the one I use the most. Just like my color picker, I keep going to this color palette idea tool to submit ideas for new color palettes.
You can also search for color palette inspiration by keyword, add an entire theme, or even add a color. What I would like to add is the ability to add HEX codes for colors as well. Then it will be much better (Hint Hint, Canva!). See what comes up when you search for “coffee”.
I searched for everything from colors like “yellow” to themes like “retro”. The result is always delicious, funky, fun and inspiring. Not to mention anything related to my query.
Often the colors I use in my searches are different from what I can generate in my own brain. And often they are amazing. Especially in terms of color combinations I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
If you have a color palette suggestion you like, get the HEX code and add it to your design tool. Grabbing the hex code is as easy as clicking “copy” which copies the hex code ready to paste into the color palette of any DIY design software you’re using.
Ready to drink coffee? Wine, summer, berry, retro, vintage… Inspiration is endless!
Here is a direct link to the color palette idea tool.. or you can find it all 4 tools here.
3. Color wheel
The color wheel tool is another very handy software that lets you pick a color, find its complementary colors, and then generate an idea for the next one.
- Create a graphic (red + cyan template opens and takes you to a page ready to explore.
- Export Palette – Download a PDF with your palette colors ready to use as a design resource.
Here is a direct link to the color wheel tool.. or you can find it all 4 tools here.
4. Color Meaning
This is a very fun tool to browse through the color list and explore the meaning of colors. Orange is fun and adventure, etc. As you know, color can have many meanings, which is important when choosing a brand color or feature color. From creating an ad to creating a logo, it’s a good idea to check the meaning of colors before deciding on a color! This tool will help you do just that!
to pack
color, color, color. From color pickers to color palette generators and color inspiration tools, it’s time to cover color tools. Whether you’re a DIY designer or a seasoned pro, you have to admit that everyone has the tools to create better designs with color. Which one would you like to use?
Donna is a visual content strategist and founder of Socially Sorted, named “Top 5 Social Media Blogs to Know in 2019” by Forbes. Donna helps brands harness the power of visual storytelling and content strategy in their businesses. Her content has appeared in publications such as Forbes and Entrepreneur Online, and she contributes to the Social Media Examiner. Donna speaks internationally for digital and visual content for the marketing and tourism industries.
