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Need a color scheme, but suck at that whole hexadecimal – where – the – hell – is – the – next – shade – of – blue thing? No biggie, I’ve got you covered. From eyedroppers, to scheme generators, to color blindness tools, below you’ll find my latest list of color tools that make my “Web Developer Must Have” list. While you’re playing with these, please do me a favor and keep in mind that the level of contrast you come up with is directly proportional to how much I’ll probably hate your site. No excuses, really now, if you want me to go into an epileptic shock (which you very well may), you’ll ignore my warning.

Here we go:

1. ColorBlender.com
   Slider based, relatively easy to use. Has a great selection of pre-made “blends” if you take a look at their “browse blends” section, though the type of blend you get doesn’t seem to be editable. This does let you get related .ACT (Photoshop) and .EPS (Illustrator) palettes from the site though. Pretty handy if you need a quick scheme in a hurry.
2. Big Huge Labs’s Palette Generator
   This one’s pretty sweet – upload an image and the generator will create a color palette for you with hexadecimal web colors from the colors in the image. It’s pretty handy if you have a nice photo that you want to build a design around.
3. ColorZilla
   An awesome eyedropper and color chooser tool extension for Firefox. Open it up and instantly know the color code of whatever it is you’re looking at. Also includes a color chooser. Highly recommended.
4. Color Fields Colr Pickr
   Way cool Flickr app that finds pictures with the color you need. Granted – many of these images are probably not okay to use without permission, but if you see something you just have to use, it’s easy to take a look and try to get ahold of the photographer.
5. ColorJack: Sphere
   The ColorJack Sphere is amazing – it lets you generate color schemes based on a formula (triads, complementary etc), and even lets you simulate color blindness. This is great as a scheme builder alone, but add in the accessibility factor and you get one of my favorite color tools. Evar.
6. The Colorblind Web Page Filter
   Have an accessibility need, but aren’t quite sure what the results are going to look like? Use the colorblind web page filter, and take a look at your site through the eyes of the colorblind. It’s quite the revealing tool, and incredibly helpful if you have a need for it.
7. J.Y. Design’s Pantone to Web HEX Color Chart
   Have a Pantone specification to go off of, but don’t know the web color to match it to? Easy. Though it’s just a big list, it’s saved my ass more than once. Easily match your web colors to Pantone colors with this chart.
8. Color Inspirator
   Haven’t the slightest idea what color scheme to start with? Try out Color Inspirator. It generates color schemes in variable sized columns, and just might jump-start your creativity with colors.
9. Metasphere’s Simple Color Chooser
   Quick and dirty color chooser. Doesn’t really get any more straightforward than this.
10. Color Schemer Online v2
    Generates a 16 color palette for you quickly based on the color of your choice. Handy, and quick to use in a bind, but what I find really useful is the ability to quickly lighten and darken entire schemes.