I use Photoshop a lot, the build-in eye dropper enables me to select colors from anywhere on the screen. I never used any other color picker until recently, working on a new machine with no Photoshop. Many browser plugins that lets you to pick color doesn’t work outside the browser window. So my quest in searching for a quick solution leads me to the list of 5 color pickers you might want to use.
1. Pixie
This is probably the lightest, fastest color picker out there. Only 11 Kb for a portable application. 8.9 Kb with a ZIP archive. You have limited features, but consider the size, it worth every bytes of your download. Download here to try it out.
2. ColorPix
ColorPix compare to Pixie has some enhanced features
- Minimize to the system tray and keep it out of the way until you need it.
- Click on any color value to copy it to the clipboard. Press Ctrl-C to copy the HEX color (without the ‘#’ sign).
- Press any key to lock or unlock the current color and the magnifier.
- Click on the ‘+’ icon to keep ColorPix on top of all running applications.
- Click on the ‘Magnifier’ button or press Ctrl-M to show/hide the built-in magnifying glass
/update on Aug 21, 2018/
The link is currently broken. Alternatively, you can go to sites like this and this to get the free tool downloaded.
3. Color Cop
Color Cop has eyedropper, magnifier, most importantly auto-copy to clipboard ! It also saves the last 7 color you have selected, complementary color palette. Have support for mouse wheel actions. About 300 KB in size.
4. Just Color Picker
Just Color Picker is relatively bigger in size (500 KB), what’s added are tons more features as well.
- 3x, 9x and 15x magnifier for great precision.
- Colour list for saving and reusing the picked colour samples.
- User’s comments and notes for each picked colour.
- Conversion of HTML, HEX and RGB colour codes into the corresponding colours.
5. Pixeur
Pixeur is the largest of all, about 1.8 Mb in size. With the added size, it has probably the biggest window view as well, here are some highlights of what this can do.
- Select any color on the screen
- Go back to any color with the Color History
- Advanced Color Selector
- Easily copy values to the clipboard
- Conveniently located in the System Tray
- Support for Hue, Saturation, and Brightness
- Smart zoom window for ease of selecting colors