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12 Best Free and Open Source Color Pickers

A color picker is a software tool used to select colors and, in some cases, to create color schemes.

The eyedropper is a tool available in most color pickers and graphics software that allows a user to read a color at a specific point in an image, or position on a display. This enables the color to be transferred to other applications particularly quickly.

To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 10 high quality color pickers. All of the software is published under an open source license. The vast majority of tools included sport a modern graphical user interface.

We only include dedicated color picker software in this roundup. Some other graphics programs also include color picker functionality.

We make the following recommendations captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style chart.

Ratings chart

Let’s explore the color pickers at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of the software in action, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources.

Color Pickers
pastelGenerate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors
GpickAdvanced color picker and palette editor
KColorChooserColor picker designed for KDE but runs on any desktop environment
EyedropperPick and format colors; this tool is geared towards advanced users
PickPython-based color picker
xcolorLightweight color picker written in Rust
epickColor picker for creating harmonic color palettes
Gcolor3Color selection dialog written in GTK+ 3
ColorpickerMinimal but complete colorpicker Electron-based desktop app
XgrabcolorBasic color picker
cpickExtensive color picker for the terminal
pikTerminal-based color picker

This article has been revamped in line with our recent announcement.

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Ben
Ben
1 year ago

For 95% of jobs, KDE’s Colour Picker is the most convenient of tools – can display a history end easily edit colours.

Phil Scrotty
Phil Scrotty
2 months ago

Pastel is probably very good at doing what it does — “generate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors.¨ However it is not a color picker (use the mouse to select a pixel on screen and show its color code) so I do not know why it is included in this list of colorpicker utilities,.