How to Select Perfectly Matching Color Combinations - Mini-Guide, Part 1

How to select a perfect color combination is indeed a difficult task if you have no experience with colors and you are not a web designer. Nonetheless, having a basic knowledge of how certain types of colors can help your website look professional and extremely legible is very important for all kinds of web publishers, from the noivice to the more experienced type.

matching_colors_color_combinations_that_go_together.jpg

Here's the issue: despite being infinite color combinations that you can create and use in your designs, the human eye really perceives only a few of them as "harmonic". But how can you find these "harmonies"?

There is a growing number of online tools and software designed to do just that: find a set of colors that go well together and that make your website look perfectly readable and enjoyable to browse.

These color matching tools are very simple to use: you simply start by choosing a base color and in just a few seconds the tool will display some possible color matches and / or propose alternatives that you might want to consider.

What is more, these tools will generally provide you with the HEX, HTML or RGB codes that represent each color so that you don't have to guess how to reproduce it inside Photoshop, but you know precisely what color you want to use in your designs.

Just remember: even if you have killer content on your website, if you welcome your readers with a eye-hurting color scheme, there are really good chances these people will drift away and never come back.

Here my personal list of the best tools on the web to find your perfect color scheme:

RSSTop55 - Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites

ColorDB

ColorDB features a multi-faceted online dashboard with different tools that allow you to create the perfect color combinations for your website or creative projects.

You can find any color matches by typing the name of the color of your choice into the search field, such as “red”, to have a comprehensive display of color harmonies pop up for that specific color. You can also click on the color wheel (or on the color palette to the right) to select your favorite color tone and have ColorDB generate automatically the possible color schemes. Another option is to use the color map and click on any color you want and then have the service create a possible match for the tone you selected.

The service also provides you with the values of the HEX, RGB, HLS, CMY and CMYK of any colors you select, so that you can give precise instructions and references to your web designer. To grab a specific color code, just place your mouse pointer over that color and watch the code pop up in a small window.

Price: Free.

ColorTools Color Matcher Tool

ColorTools Color Matcher Tool is a web-based tool that helps you measure whether two colors match or not and whether they can ensure the maximum legibility and consistency to your designs.

Simply select a color by choosing three pairs of numbers or letters on the palette of the left and repeat the procedure on the palette of the right, in order to form the HEX code of the color tone you want. Once you find the colors of your choice on both palettes, click on the “Match” button and check whether the two colors go well together according to the percentage rate. The higher the result, the more precise the color combinations will be.

Price: Free.

ColorPicker

ColorPicker is an online color matching tool that allows you to find te perfect color scheme for your website in a few steps.

Simply select a color from the selection square or fine-tune your selection by providing the HEX code of your desired color and by adjusting saturation, hue and brightness to display exactly the color you have in mind. Then generate a color scheme choosing among these options: complementary, triad, tetrade or analogic.

Price: Free.

Atalasoft Color Schemer

Atalasoft Color Schemer is a web-based tool that helps you find perfect color schemes starting from your own photographs.

You simply have to upload an image from your computer and the tool will analyze all the colors present inside the image and then provide you with a color scheme with the HEX values of all colors found. Additionally, you can also click anywhere on the image and find the precise value of a single color.

Price: Free.

WorkWithColor

WorkWithColor is a multi-faceted color matching website with many useful applications to help you choose your ideal website color combinations.

Tools such as Color Picker display HEX, HTML, HSL and RGB values by clicking on a rainbow color wheel. You can adjust luminance, saturation and hue to create custom color schemes or apply one of ten pre-defined color scheme options. Select from 16 different base colors and convert to HEX, CIE, CMYK and other popular colors systems. To find the perfect matching colors, reference the helpful link showing color names sorted by hue and luminance values.

Price: Free.

Magic Matching Color

Magic Matching Color is a color combinations software tool that you can download (32 bits, Windows only) and use to find the perfect color match for web design purposes. You can try a free version of Magic Matching Color for 30 days.

Simply start by selecting the main color using three sliders that represent the RGB color scheme. Then, Magic Matching Color will present you with six resulting color combinations. If you choose to work with one of the new generated colors, just click on the color and promote it to a main one, thus creating a new group of five other color matches. When finished, you can export the final color in an HTML code to use on your website.

Price: $12.95