Finding just the right color for text or images can be a challenge. Maybe you want to match a color you saw on the web, or maybe you are looking for the perfect color blue. Here are a few tools to help you find just the right color.
But first a little background...
Color "Names"
One of the challenges in finding the right color is figuring out what to call it! If you have ever been to a paint store, you know there is no such thing as beige. There is off-white, arctic snow, ecru, tan, and more! The computer solves this problem by giving each color a numerical name. There are two main color naming conventions: RGB and hexadecimal. Sometimes you will work with a program that wants the color in RGB and sometimes a program will want the color in hexadecimal.
RGB is a color model that gives a numeric value to the amount of Red, Green, and Blue in the color. This is useful as a naming convention and gives you the option to make small adjustments to the color by increasing or decreasing the red, green, or blue number. (it is like adding a little more "tint" to the paint color!)
Hexadecimal (or "hex") gives a numeric value to the color but instead of using a base 10 numbering system (decimal), it uses a base 16 numbering system (hexadecimal). A hex color name is six digits in length and begins with a #. For example, #FF0000 is the hex name for a particular red.
(Decimal uses the characters 0-9 which is 10 characters. Deci means 10 which is why our numbering system is called the decimal system. Because hexadecimal uses sixteen characters, it uses 0-9 and A-F.)
If you want to locate a color "by eye" you can use a web-based tool
- this tool by w3schools.com is similar to the standard and custom color picker used by Word and PowerPoint. You pick your color and then use the lighter/darker scale to find the exact color you want to use. The selected color is displayed in the middle of the screen with the hex, RGB, and hsl colors. (hsl stands for hue, saturation, and lightness and is the third naming convention for colors, but you likely will not see it very often.)
- you can mix your own RGB colors by altering the amount of each color in this tool by w3schools.com. Adjust the amount of Red, Green, and Blue by typing a number or clicking on the Red, Green, and Blue color lines. Your newly mixed color will be displayed in a color block above the Red, Green, and Blue color lines, and the RGB, Hex, and HSL color codes for your new color will be displayed to the right of the color block.
- There are also many tools on the web to convert hex to RGB, or RGB to hex,
If you want to match a color on the web
In a previous blog post, I told you how you can use the eyedropper tool in PowerPoint (or Word) to sample a color from within PowerPoint. But what if you want to sample a color outside of PowerPoint and from a webpage?
There are several tools to sample a color on the web and the one I use is called Colorzilla. Colorzilla is an extension you can add to your Chrome or Firefox toolbar. You can then use the eyedropper/color picker to find the exact color of anything in your browser, and use the color numbers to color your text, lines or fills!
Here is a demonstration of how to install and use Colorzilla.
How might you use custom coloring?
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