Recommendations for a HEX ColorPicker for Colors?

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Level 1

96 points

Recommendations for a HEX ColorPicker for Colors?

For years I've used the RCWeb color picker as an add-in to Colors. Now, having migrated to High Sierra, I find that it does not work well.

I do still have it in the ColorPickers folder and it does show up when I call up the color picker:

but if I click off it to another picker and then go back to RCWeb, it is now blank. It stays that way until I quit the app I'm using it with (i.e., clicking OK and then calling it up again is not good enough to refresh it):

I understand that the the second-from-left picker does show a HEX value but not with the individual values. I really would prefer a picker that shows both the concatenated hex string AND the individual 3 parts of an RGB color. (It also doesn't offer an option to lock to only Web Safe colors.):

The Digital Color Meter app is interesting and it does display the Hex values for the R G and B parts individually (tho' the '0x' prefix, while precise, is a distraction). And the concatenated HEX value is not presented. Also, Digital Color Meter does not appear to have the capability to save a pallette of frequently-used swatches (like Colors shows).

Are there other HEX options available that do both -- show HEX values (individually & concatenated) and save pallette color swatches?

MBair, MBPro, Mini, iStuff

Posted on Mar 4, 2018 1:29 PM

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Answer 1

keriah Author

Level 1

96 points

Mar 4, 2018 4:14 PM in response to VikingOSX

VikingOSX wrote:

The standard Mac color chooser's color sliders (2nd item) will show the hex value for stored colors when you click on the individual color.

It does, but only in what I'm calling the 'concatenated' field. Up in the 3 individual Red, Green, Blue fields the 3-digit value is displayed. That's a useless-to-me value. I want the 2-digit hex code there for the R, G, or B portion of the hex code (as it was done by RCWeb). But, so far, this is the closest to what I'm needing.

VikingOSX wrote:

I also use the free Skala Color picker added to the Color Chooser which not only provides a hex color value, ...

Thanks for this pointer. I have now installed it but I have two problems with it. (1) As with RCWeb, once I move off it (say, to the color slider) and then back, the top area of its display is blank! (2) When it does display colors in the top area the hex value is WRONG. E.g., when I drop the first color from my saved palette it does not present the correct hex code. The value is correctly displayed by the 2nd item slider. So I'm puzzled by this. I don't know what it's doing but if I can't rely on the rendering from my saved palette then it won't work for me.

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Answer 2

Mar 4, 2018 3:37 PM in response to keriah

The standard Mac color chooser's color sliders (2nd item) will show the hex value for stored colors when you click on the individual color.

I also use the free Skala Color picker added to the Color Chooser which not only provides a hex color value, but also allows me to copy Objective-C and Swift NSColor values to the clipboard. I am currently using Skala Color picker with macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

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Answer 3

keriah Author

Level 1

96 points

Mar 4, 2018 3:56 PM in response to etresoft

etresoft wrote:

I just discovered this the other day. Do a Google search for a hex colour, like #ddeedd

The result will be a pretty decent colour picker.

Hmmm... Interesting, but -no- this isn't what I need for my workflow. Say, I am working in GraphicConverter and I need to switch between the dozen colors I have saved in my palette. I want to quickly see all the color options I have saved and move between them in a single pane.

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Answer 4

Mar 4, 2018 5:58 PM in response to keriah

1) Not for me. Stays the same when switching between Skala and Color slider panel.

2) By default, the Color Slider pane is using the Generic RGB color model, and Skala is using sRGB. This accounts for the different hex values. As soon as you set the Color Slider gear selector to sRGB, then the two hex values will match.

Don't overlook the fact that the color bubble in the top half of Skala Color can rotate to introduce Hue.

That hex value is #RRGGBB, so divide your hex value into thirds and those will be your individual R,G,B color slider hex values.

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Answer 5

keriah Author

Level 1

96 points

Mar 4, 2018 6:15 PM in response to VikingOSX

VikingOSX wrote:

1) Not for me. Stays the same when switching between Skala and Color slider panel.

2) By default, the Color Slider pane is using the Generic RGB color model, and Skala is using sRGB. This accounts for the different hex values. As soon as you set the Color Slider gear selector to sRGB, then the two hex values will match.

The problem with this is that I have an existing set of color swatches in my Colors panel (as my earlier screen shots show). Yes, I see now that I can set the Color Slider to an sRGB profile and, yes, its value now agrees with Skala. My issue is that now BOTH of them are wrong!!!

I know what the values are in my swatches. The first one (for example) is #FF3333. With the Slider set to sRGB, now both the Slider and Skala report this value as FF4D41. That is just an incorrect value.

The better news is that I have found something of a fix. I have installed (a trial of) ColorSnapper 2. It does 3 remarkable things (albeit with a few more clicks):

(1) It restores the functionality of RCWeb (RCWeb no longer loses its top display when I switch between the Colors pickers -- same for Skala, which was also having this 'disappearing' issue)

(2) It gives me a color picker that is fixed-width so that my swatches don't move all over the place when the swatches are rearranged or the picker window resized.

(3) **And this is my BIGGEST find** It makes the color picker work the way it used to work and it does it for ALL picker types -- specifically, when I click on one of the saved swatches the value IMMEDIATELY shows up in the leftmost (selected) swatch area. I don't have to drag/drop a swatch there. This was a HUGE workflow difference for me but one that I figured was so long gone I wouldn't even try to report it.

For now I'm going to go with this as my "best fix"....

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Answer 6

etresoft

Level 8

46,110 points

Mar 4, 2018 1:46 PM in response to keriah

I just discovered this the other day. Do a Google search for a hex colour, like #ddeedd

The result will be a pretty decent colour picker.

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