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Download the trial version |
Since Isaac Newton demonstrated in 1665 that white light can be decomposed into a spectrum of colors and (amazingly!) that those colors could be recombined to give white light, the phenomenon of color has been analysed conceptually in over a hundred ways. The electronics world has adopted one particular analysis, which says that any color is a combination of three components, namely, the red component, the green component and the blue component. This RGB color model was proposed in 1850 by Hermann von Helmholtz (building on earlier studies of human color perception by Thomas Young).
The color of each pixel on your monitor is composed of individual red, green and blue colors. Each of these components can have an intensity measured on a scale of 0 through 255. Thus the number of possible pixel colors is 256*256*256 = 16,777,216 (although studies of retinal cone cell sensitivities indicate that humans can actually distinguish no more than about a million colors). The RGB color model can be imagined as a cube in Cartesian space, with each coordinate ranging from 0 through 255. Fixing a value for a particular x-, y- or z- coordinate produces a plane through this cube such that all colors in this plane have a fixed red, green or blue component. This is the conceptual basis for this color picker software.
After activation the Hermetic Color Picker program appears as at right upon startup (or as it was when quitting the program from the previous run). First select whether you wish to specify a background color or a foreground color. Selection then of the base color (red, green or blue) determines which color component has a fixed value. The 16 small boxes then show 16 planes of the color cube with 16 different values ('bcv') of the selected color component (equally spaced from 8 through 248). Clicking on one of these will copy the selected plane to the large box. Then click on a pixel in the large box to set the values of the other two color components. The specified color is not changed by switching to a different base color, but the location of the pixel in the large box changes when you do this. (Selecting a new base color is equivalent to rotating the plane through 90° while keeping the specified color within it.)
The value of the base color component can also be specified via the base color value textbox (be sure to click on the Apply button or simply press the Enter key). To get a particular color for which you know the values of the red, green and blue components, select each base color in turn and enter the values in the base color value textbox (click on Apply each time). After the third entry that color will be shown.
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The foreground color can be specified in the same way (after selecting Foreground color). Note that in the image at left the specified foreground color is the background color, not the color of the text. By selecting Background color you can then see text in the specified foreground color on the specified background color, as in the image at right. |  |
Background color: red 13 (dec.) D (hex.) green 6 (dec.) 6 (hex.) blue 202 (dec.) CA (hex.) 13239821 (decimal) #0D06CA (hexadecimal for HTML) &HCA060D (hexadecimal for Visual Basic) RGB(13,6,202) (RGB funtion for Visual Basic) Foreground color: red 234 (dec.) EA (hex.) green 146 (dec.) 92 (hex.) blue 235 (dec.) EB (hex.) 15438570 (decimal) #EA92EB (hexadecimal for HTML) &HEB92EA (hexadecimal for Visual Basic) RGB(234,146,235) (RGB funtion for Visual Basic) |
If "Everything" is showing in the drop-down list then clicking on the Copy to clipboard button will copy all the data shown to the clipboard, from which you can then paste it into a text editor such as NotePad. From there you can copy and paste the values for the foreground and background colors as needed, either as hexadecimal for HTML color specification, hexadecimal as used in Visual Basic programs, or as decimal for some other purpose.
If you want to copy only a single color value (e.g., the hexadecimal value of the background color) then select this from the drop-down list before clicking on the Copy to clipboard button. You can then paste this directly into your HTML or Visual Basic code.
Trial version: A copy of the Hermetic Color Picker installation program can be downloaded for the purpose of installing a trial version of the program for evaluation. Click on the following link for further information:
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Refund: A refund will be provided promptly up to thirty days after purchase if the software does not perform satisfactorily.
Updates: Purchasers of a user license for this software are entitled to an update to any later version at no additional cost.
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