Dec 08 2008
Color Cop
If you ever do any editing that requires capturing the exact colors of something on your screen, be it from a picture or a web design or even a flash animation, then Color Cop should be in your software arsenal.
I was reminded of this tool the other day when a friend of mine asked me if I knew of a better way to get the hex code of a color from an image than by opening said image in Photoshop and using the eye dropper tool. I balked at the idea of her having to go through this process each time she needed to determine a single color.
Color Cop is very small (under 100K in size) and opens instantly. The main interface is pretty straight forward. It’s got a nice big square in which the selected color is displayed as well as the hex code underneath and the RGB values to the left. On the right is a history of the last 7 colors that you have selected in case you need to go back to one.
Now on the left side are the eye dropper and magnifying glass tools. This is one reason I like Color Cop above other color picking tools (of which there are many). You can either drag the eye dropper outside of the main window and onto the image or other screen item you’re trying to color match, or you can do can actually take a mini snapshot of the area you’re matching from with the magnifying glass. The snapshot appears in the lower right corner and stays the same even if the item itself changes. This is also handy because you can then zoom in and out of the captured area to afford more precise selection of colors.
Another useful feature is the Multi-Pixel Averaging. As you can see from the right-click menu here, it is one of the many options available. This allows you to click on a single pixel and Color Cop then averages out the colors with either a 3×3 or 5×5 grid around that pixel. This can sometimes lead to more pleasing results.
Color Cop is freeware and hasn’t been updated in quite a while, but frankly, this is one of those tools that’s pretty much perfect as it is now.
