Make Your World More Colorful with ColorSchemer Touch

I panted, out of breath as I chased the leprechaun through the forest.  He was quick, but I had to be quicker- for if I was, he would lead me to the pot-o’-gold at the end of the rainbow.  And then with a lunge, I caught the little man by the belt and held him down.  His green eyes showed that he knew he’d been beaten as they looked up at me from ‘neath fiery red eyebrows.  Dejected, he reached into his pouch and produced  a small note.  It was then that I realized that his was not the traditional pot-o’-gold, but rather the rainbow itself as a treasure; on the note was written a name- the secret source of the leprechaun’s rainbow.  I read it carefully and it simply said: ColorSchemer Touch.

I let the man go and he was off with a scurry.  I pulled out my iphone and immediately opened the AppStore to “ColorSchemer Touch”.  What a treasure it was!  So many colors, so many choices, and so much to do!  I could find other people’s palettes filled with greens, blues, purples and more!  I could create my own palettes from color wheels, spectrums and even photos.  And this is what I found…

Explore

It’s all about palettes- groups of related colors that help to provide a consistant look-and-feel to your project.  Many visual designers out there are probably already familiar with the many uses for colourlovers.com and their online tools, but if you’re not, then go ahead and check out that link before reading on…

As soon as you start up ColorSchemer Touch, you’ll see a screen full of colorful palettes pulled right from the Colourlovers database.  You can quickly scroll down to explore, or use the search bar to find palettes matching a descriptive word such as “winter” or “fire”.

Create

The sheer volume of color schemes available from the Colourlovers community can be overwhelming itself, but don’t stop there!  By tapping the “+” button in the upper right-hand corner, you get ushered into a new section that allows you to create your own custom palettes.  It’s almost like waking up to find that your house has been sucked up by a tornado and landed in the magical (and colorful) land of Oz!  Lucky for us however, the developers have NOT included singing munchkins nor flying monkeys in ColorSchemer.

The first color creation page allows you to build a palette using a “Color Wheel”.  Just tap the space in the color bar at the top to pick a new color or drag an existing color off of the bar to remove it.  There is also a button in the lower left-hand corner that will bring up an RGB panel for custom color value modifications.

The “LiveSchemes” screen shows a different and somewhat more controllable color wheel.  You can touch the “+” button to add new colors, and manipulate all of the colors in unison, keeping their relative values.

The next screen is one of my favorites!  With it, you can either take a new photo, or choose one from your phone’s photo galleries.  You can then take that photo and derive any number of color schemes from it!  A magnifying glass appears as you drag your finger over the image, helping you to pick a color with great accuracy.  I love this!

And finally, the “Spectrum” screen let’s you select your colors from a traditional color spectrum box.  Once again, you just slide around picking the shade and tone that you need.

When your palette is complete, you can save it, giving it a Title, Description and relevant Tags.  When you’re done filling in the information, hit “done” and your colors will be saved in the app and, if you log in with a Colourlovers account, it will be saved to your profile as well.

Interact

The ColorSchemer Touch integration with Colourlovers community allows you to not only share your own palettes with others, but also to view, favorite, and comment on theirs.  The information displayed on each palette’s profile page includes statistics about that palette, the option to share it via email or save it to your camera roll, and my particular favorite- the names and values of each color within the palette.  Tap on the section where the color names are listed, and it changes to their Hex and then RGB values respectively.  This alone makes the app worthwhile for any color-creatives out there!

Summary

ColorSchemer Touch is an incredible union between the online colourlovers.com resources and community, and the power and convenience of the iPhone.  In the limited time that I’ve had the app, it’s already been not only fun to use, but greatly helpful to me as well.  If you have any use for full palettes, or even just individual colors, this app is the perfect one to get the job done!  It’s easy to use and full of features to suit practically any color need on the go!