Choosing Perfect Color Scheme

Top Secret Technique for a Perfect Color Scheme

Many Web page builders agonize unnecessarily over choosing a color scheme for their pages. In addition to the color choices themselves, the proportion of those colors is also critical to the overall look of the Web page. Fortunately, there is a very simple, foolproof way to create a perfectly harmonized and proportionate color palette.

This method is so simple, and so effective, that I don't know why it isn't plastered all over the web ... but it isn't, it's still top secret.

I use Adobe PhotoShop, but this technique will work with any graphics creation or editing program with an eyedropper tool and the ability to open an image file.

1. Find any image - anywhere, I use the web frequently - in which you find the colors visually appealing. It doesn't matter why you find the colors appealing, just that you do. To determine whether it is the colors or some other aspect of the image that you find attractive, squint your eyes until the image blurs. If the colors alone are still appealing, use that image.

2. Save the image, then open it in your image editing application. I'll call this your "source" image. Open a new document in the same work area. This is your "palette" image.

3. From the source image, determine the color that covers the most area. Use the eyedropper tool to sample that color. In your palette image, use the paint bucket (or fill) tool to set this as the background color.

4. Pick another color, with the eyedropper tool, from the source image. Notice the proportion that the color has to the overall image. In your palette image, use the rectangular selection (or draw rectangle) tool to create an area that has roughly the same proportion to the whole palette image and the source color has to the source image. Again, use the paint bucket (or fill) tool to set the new rectangle to the new color.

5. Continue transferring colors, in the same approximate proportions, until you have four or five palette image colors in addition to the background.

6. If your imaging application is able, convert the image to Web-safe colors, and save your new color palette.

7. Determine the relative proportion each Web page element has to the overall page, and then simply assign the corresponding palette image colors to them.

Of course, you'll have to tweak your colors a little bit until you get exactly the look you are after, but this secret method can save you hours of trial and error.

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