Eyedropper is a useful little program which I couldn’t be without. It will tell you the hex, RGB or CMYK of any colour on screen if you hover your cursor over it, and so is invaluable for web development. Many people use Colorzilla for this, which is a Firefox plugin. However, the advantage of Eyedropper is that it works anywhere on screen, not just inside the browser window.
In addition, it also gives you the x and y mouse coordinates, which is very useful for checking that things line up properly. The program is very small and unobtrusive, it sits in the systray until you double-click the icon to pick it up. Then it will follow your cursor around, until you double-click its icon in the systray again to put it back.
Unfortunately it doesn’t have hex codes set to appear by default, so when you first install the program, you will need to right-click it’s icon, Select ‘Properties’ and tick ‘Show hex values’. You can then hover over your desired colour, and press Ctrl + C to copy its hex code to your clipboard.
A similar program is Pixie, though I like it less as it remains static in the centre of the screen. This means you have to switch in and out of it, unlike Eyedropper which feels more natural as follows the cursor, making it easier to continue your work without needing to make a switch. Both these programs are small, and free (though I don’t think they are available for the Mac).
Alex Says:
Whenever I use eyedropper to select a hex colour, it makes a sound a bit like a moose bellowing in the woodlands. Is this meant to happen?