What Inspires: Color Apps

Have you ever wished you could capture the scene in front of you and make it into a color palette?  I know I’ve been amazed by fall foliage or enamored by a bouquet and then, regrettably, forgotten all about it.  Recently, I’ve started using two iPhone/iPad apps to help choose and record colorways.  It’s an awful lot of fun.

Pantone’s “myPANTONE™” application is the first one I learned about. You take a photo with your device and the app makes it into a five color palette.  It’s really easy to email the palette to yourself, a friend, a colleague or whomever.  I snapped a photo of the pile of knits next to my desk. Here’s  a screenshot of the email I sent to myself with the palette and the original photo.  It’s interesting that all of the colors look bright in the photo but the color swatches are a really close match to the original pieces.  I am totally into this muted palette.

I later learned about Adobe’s Kuler app. The photo taking process is about the same, but you also get to choose between a few different color palettes or you can move the selections around and make your own custom version.

This lovely granite outcropping is in the Berroco parking lot. Kuler extracted a great section of neutrals from my photo.

Both of these apps give you links to your colorways.  We’d love to see what your palette looks like.  Post the link in a comment below and we’ll be sure to check it out!