Kuler is the new collaborative color theme generator from Adobe. While it’s meant specifically for designers, it’s equally helpful for photography as well. It’s online, free and community-based. And, it’s free. From Adobe. You got that, right? Adobe? Free?
The interface has a simple color wheel that has 4-5 nodes that can be moved around; the positions of the nodes control the colors of the swatches of color at the the bottom of the screen. While the ‘custom’ mode gives one full control of the nodes, there are other modes set according to predefined rules. For example, the ‘Shades’ rule will help you navigate five shades of the same color. Or the ‘triad’ will help you play around with 3 color schemes. Once you are satisfied with the color scheme that you’ve generated, you have the option of naming it and sharing it with helpful tags. You can also browse through schemes made by other nerds and bask in the warm cozy feeling of nerdy brotherhood.
Once saved, you can also export the swatch values (color info) to other Adobe products. Having a set color scheme in mind while post-processing images leads to interesting results. You could also try and integrate the color choices while taking the actual image with color gels. It’s also possible to work the other way around: to generate a color scheme from an image. You have the option of either uploading an image or linking to your Flickr account for this.
For offline work, if you have Adobe Air installed, there is a tiny little applet that you can use to admire your creations right from your desktop. With connectivity, you can also browse through sorted lists (in order of popularity or recommendation) of others’ creations. Enjoy!
Mental Note: Remember to crop deskbar before posting images.
