If you work with colors on a Mac, you'll probably love Mondrianum. It combines the functionality of Adobe's popular color-theme creation community, Kuler, with the native color pickers of Mac OS X. When you open the color picker window in the apps you normally use -- everything from Textedit on up to Coda and Photoshop -- Mondrianum will be right there alongside the color wheel and the crayon picker.

Mondrianum lets you access Kuler themes right from the picker window, allowing you to choose an appropriate palette for the project you're working on. It integrates so seamlessly, it feels like it should have been there all along. If you checked out Mondrianum when it was still in version 1, your copy is about expire. Download version 2, which now works on both Tiger and Leopard, and responds to some changes in the Kuler API.

If you're tackling some graphic design project or maybe even your wall decor, getting color hints from ready made color templates from professional designers can be useful. Below are 10 of the better sites to help you out on your design challenge.


ColorCombos - nice color palettes to choose from. If there's a particular website whose colors you want to snag, check out their "Grab Website Colors" engine. You just input the URL of the site you're reviewing and ColorCombos extracts the palette for you.



COLOURlovers - this is pretty close to color mecca. This post should actually be filed as a Timewaster because you can spend hours checking out the various palettes and patterns and rolling your own. The site is full of features such as create your own palette from a URL you're inspired by, join groups devoted to colors (srsly), shore up on the latest color trends, contribute your own content and vote on others.


ColorExplorer - another site that's feature rich and full of color goodies. Color import from images, palette export to most programs, convert any number of colors into a matching palette, 1 click palette filters and adjustments, plus no requirement for site registration.


Kuler - not surprisingly, Adobe has a fetching web app to help you generate color schemes and if you have Adobe's Creative Suite 4, Kuler is built in. Kuler has great tools such as color extractor from an image, theme creation from 1 to several colors, as well as a community you can join and give and receive comments on yours and other's creations.


ColorJack - very nice color site featuring several apps such as Color Sphere which allows you to choose the right color scheme supporting 18 formulas and 9 color blindness simulations. There's also Color Galaxy, an online color visualizer with colors from 27 libraries including everyone's favorite forever and ever, Crayola.

Keep reading for more...

Are you a designer? developer? Like color? Want to do some cool things with Adobe's Kuler application? Now you can.

The Adobe Labs project Kuler, is a hosted color picker application that allows for inspiration, creativity and sharing, they now have an API for developers. This new Kuler API allows developers to request RSS feeds of the highest rated or most popular color themes, and incorporating them into web project and web sites.

Check out some Kuler API usage in the Showcase. Warning, most do require users to have Adobe AIR installed.

If you missed the color course in college or habitually spend a small fortune on paint tester cans only to throw recycle them, you can (unlike at the paint service desk at Home Depot) get really good color help online. On the web, there are professional color palettes from infinite sources to help you out. Here's a few unearthed from Fuzzy Future to help you find the perfect color match for your design project:

ColorBlender
You can slide the RGB buttons to create a core color which then automatically creates a coordinating palette.




DeGraeve
Input the URL of an image and the site will generate a lovely palette to match.



Kuler
Kuler from Adobe Labs helps you create endless colors and you always come out looking like a pro.



EasyRGB
Match your RGB values to real color paint lines (including Sherwin Williams), inks, fandecks, etc.



[via Digg]

I'm not sure I've ever understood the web's obsession with color pickers, i.e. apps that help you build color schemes for whatever you're trying to design. Maybe that means I'm good at designing my own color schemes, or maybe it means that I'm really, really bad at it. At any rate, some of them are pretty cool, including kuler, a newish one from Adobe Labs. Characteristically, kuler is Flash-based and has a very slick interface. For creating color schemes you have a lot of help: there are analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound, shades, and custom modes, most of which are Greek to me but the little multiple-spoked color wheel is fun to play with. More interesting, though, is kuler's social aspect: If you create an account and log in you can save and share your color themes with other users, and rate the themes others have created. Though Flash interfaces aren't always my cup of tea, kuler is fun to use and great if you're looking for a little inspiration.

[Via Ned Batchelder]