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Have you ever wanted to copy a color from your screen and use it for your projects? Whether designing a website, editing an image, or creating a presentation, you might need to find the exact shade of a color that catches your eye. But how do you do that without guessing or through trial and error?
That’s where the Windows Color Picker comes in handy. It’s a free utility tool from Microsoft that lets you pick any color from any application on your Windows 10 PC. You can then copy the color code in different formats and use it according to your needs.
We’ll show you how to install and use the Windows Color Picker on your Windows PC below.
What Is the Windows Color Picker and What Is it Used For?
The Windows Color Picker is a tool that lets you pick any color from your screen and copy its code in different formats. It’s useful for anyone who works with colors, such as designers, developers, artists, or educators.
The color picker works with any application on your Windows PC. You can use it to find out what colors are used in a logo, an image, or in the app you’re using. You can also use it to create custom themes, palettes, or gradients for your projects.
Once you’ve picked a color, you can copy the color code in different formats, such as HEX, RGB, HSL, or CMYK. Next, you can adjust the color value with sliders or enter values with your keyboard. Finally, you can save the colors you picked to a palette and export them as a text file.
The Windows Color Picker is part of the PowerToys suite, a collection of useful tools for Windows 10 and Windows 11 users. You can download PowerToys from Microsoft’s website or via the Microsoft Store for free.
After the installation is complete, launch the PowerToys app from the Start menu.
In the PowerToys Settings window, press Color Picker in the menu on the left. On the right, ensure the Enable Color Picker slider is switched to On.
Once Windows Color Picker is enabled, you can start using it immediately.
How to Use the Windows Color Picker
Once you’ve enabled the color picker, you can use it anytime by pressing the keyboard shortcut (Windows key + Shift + C by default) on your keyboard.
Once you activate the shortcut, a small pop-up box will appear next to your mouse cursor. This box will display a preview of the color you are pointing to in the form of a square and its corresponding hexadecimal (hex) code.
You can point your mouse cursor at any on-screen item to find the color at that position. For instance, you could point it at an image you’ve opened or an application’s user interface element (such as a button or sidebar).
To see additional information about a color on-screen, simply hover over it and press the left mouse button. This action will prompt a window to appear, providing you with the hex color code, RGB (red, green, blue) value, and HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) value of the selected color.
To copy one of these values as a text string to your clipboard, hover over it and select the Copy icon.
The color value you have chosen can be further customized within the color picker by clicking in the center of the large color bar at the top of the window. This action will take you to a new menu with values you can adjust with either your mouse or manually using your keyboard.
When you’re done, click Select. The color will be added to the menu on the left for you to use or export later.
If you need to remove a color from the palette on the side of the window, right-click the color square and select Remove. To export the palette as a text file, right-click any color square and select Export instead.
If you choose to Export, you can select Grouped by color or Grouped by format, depending on how you’d like the file to be exported.
How to Customize the Windows Color Picker
The Windows Color Picker also allows you to customize some of its settings and features. For example, you can change the behavior of the activation shortcut, the default format of the copied color, and the appearance of the editor window.
To customize the Windows Color Picker, open PowerToys Settings and select Color Picker in the sidebar. You’ll see a list of options you can tweak according to your preferences.
Here are some of the settings that you can currently customize:
- Activation keyboard shortcut: You can change the keyboard shortcut that activates the color picker. By default, it’s Windows key + Shift + C, but you can choose any combination of keys that works for you.
- Behavior of the activation shortcut: You can choose what happens when you press the activation shortcut. You can either open the color picker with the editor or without it.
- Default format of a copied color: You can choose which format of the color code you want to copy to your clipboard by default. You can choose from HEX, RGB, HSL, CMYK, and more.
- Visible color formats in the editor window: You can choose which color formats are visible in the editor window and in what order they appear. You can also change the size and opacity of the editor window.
You can experiment with different settings and see what works best for you. Any changes you make aren’t permanent—you can repeat these steps to restore them afterward.
Using the Windows Color Picker
If you’re a graphics designer or media creator, using the Window Color Picker is a great way to quickly identify colors (and their representative color codes) in different formats and use them in future projects.
However, there are other tools you can use to help you pick out colors. For instance, you could use a color picker extension in Chrome to identify colors you like in Google Chrome (or Microsoft Edge. Also, try inverting colors in pictures to find striking colors for a more dramatic effect in your images.
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The Pipette
Each designer, webmaster or friend of good photos or pictures knows how important is choosing the right color for web pages, graphics, pictures and photos. The right color supports the image of a product, creates a recognition factor and lets something appear elegant or cheap.
Therefore, the selection of the right color requires a special skill, expertise and the necessary software that helps the operator. Often, one would like to use a color from a photograph or an image in another context, for example for a font next to the picture or to adapt the color in its nuances.
Fetch and Convert Colors
Precisely for these tasks our program, the pipette, available for Windows, macOS and Linux, is made for. Because the tool is portable, you can also use it without an installation.
With this application, it is possible to pick up colors from somewhere on your screen — for example from other applications or photos — and to transform them to many color models such as RGB, CMY, CMYK, HSV, TColor or XYZ. Moreover, it is possible to convert a color from one color model to the others or change the color in its nuances with many opportunities. The Pipette automatically saves the grabbed or otherwise generated colors in its color list, so that you can create a color portfolio and the colors can also be available to you the next time you start the program if needed.
On this website you also get an introduction to the necessary theory behind colors. For example, in the section Color Models, all color models used in the application are explained and in our little color lexicon you can find lots of other useful information on the subject. In addition, you can find some color charts on this page. Here you can find some color codes even without using the program. If you want to work with the colors from the color tables, we recommend to use the Pipette to pick up the respective color directly from the window of your browser.
Download
Download the Pipette for free in the download area for Windows, Linux or macOS and learn in the first steps how you can benefit from this application. Additionally, we are collecting frequently asked question about the Pipette on the FAQ page for you. The Pipette is portable, you can use the program directly without an installation.
Screenshots
You want to first see what the Pipette looks like? On the screenshot page we have compiled some screenshots of the Pipette for you.
Free portable offline colour picker and colour editor for web designers and digital artists
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More download options…
Any questions about Just Color Picker? You are on the right page! Below are answers to almost everything. 
Graphic designers, digital artists and webmasters can get artistic ideas and inspiration at any moment. They often notice colours and colour combinations for their projects while doing something else. This is why a quick and convenient way of capturing those colours is essential. With Just Color Picker, identifying the colours, saving, editing and combining them into beautiful colour combinations is super easy. Unlike many other apps, Just Color Picker was created by a person who actually uses it on an everyday basis. It is software for designers and digital artists created by a designer and a digital artist.
Just Color Picker features:
- Extensive range of colour code formats: HEX, RGB, HSB/HSV, HSL, HWB, CMY, CMYK and TColor.
- Averaged colour sampling for easy colour noise handling.
- 3x, 9x and 15x magnifier and keyboard control of the mouse cursor movements for greater precision.
- Screen freeze feature for sampling the colour of the elements that change on mouse-hover.
- Point lock feature for monitoring the colour in the set screen location independent of the mouse cursor position.
- Calculation of pixel distance between points.
- Colour list for saving, cataloguing and re-using the picked colours.
- Ability to open, edit and save Adobe Photoshop .aco colour swatches (Adobe color files) and GIMP .gpl palette files.
- Interaction with the standard Windows and macOS colour dialogs.
- User comments and notes for picked colours.
- Conversion of Hexadecimal and RGB colour codes into the corresponding colours.
- Red-Green-Blue (RGB), Cyan-Magenta-Yellow (CMY) and Red-Yellow-Blue (RYB) colour wheels with marked triads and complementary colours.
- Harmonious colour scheme generator.
- RGB, HSV and HSL colour editors for adjusting and editing colours.
- Gradient transition between any two colours for creating a wide range of in-between hues.
- Text tool for evaluating the readability of the selected font and background colour combinations.
- CSS-ready colour codes for HTML, PHP and other web-pages.
- Optional stay-on-top behaviour.
- User-defined hotkeys for colour capture, screen freeze and point lock.
- Colour capture by mouse click (Windows only).
- Copying the colour code to the clipboard with one mouse click or automatically.
- High-DPI awareness.
- Multi-display support.
- Light and dark modes, adjusting automatically to the system settings.
- No installation required. Just Color Picker is a portable application and can be run directly from a USB stick.
- Multilingual interface: English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish.
Download
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Latest version
6.1, released 13 February 2025.
For Windows
Supported platforms: 32 and 64 bit Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11. Portable application, no installation required.
Download free Just Color Picker 6.1 portable, 64 bit (exe), size 4.3MB
Download free Just Color Picker 6.1 portable, 64 bit (zip), size 1.6MB
Download free Just Color Picker 6.1 portable, 32 bit (exe), size 3.4MB
Important: Do not put jcpicker.exe in Program Files or other protected folders, as Windows may not permit Just Color Picker to create new files for your settings and picked colours.
For macOS
Supported platforms: 64 bit macOS 10.8 or later. For 32 bit macOS, Just Color Picker 5.1 is available in the Version History.
Download free Just Color Picker 6.1, 64 bit (dmg), size 5.1MB
Important: Make sure that Just Color Picker is allowed to access your screen in macOS Settings. Open Apple menu > System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording. Add Just Color Picker to the Screen Recording permission list, then restart the app. Just Color Picker doesn’t record your screen, but it needs this permission to be able to access the colours of the elements displayed on the screen.
Licence
100% freeware. Highest respect for user privacy: no registration, no snooping, no personal data collection, no nonsense.
User Manual
Main window
Just Color Picker is a tool for capturing the colour of any pixel in any screen area and displaying its code in a variety of formats: HEX, RGB, HSB/HSV, HSL, HWB, CMY, CMYK and TColor.
The colour of the pixel that your mouse cursor is currently pointing at is shown in the current colour area at the top left corner of the application window, with the code of that colour, the coordinates of that pixel, and the horizontal and vertical distance between the two latest-picked pixels displayed below it.
To pick a colour and its code, choose the desired format in the colour code format list, then point the mouse cursor at any pixel or a screen area and press the hotkey. On Windows, the default hotkey combination for capturing the colour is Alt+X, and it can be changed in Options – Hotkeys menu. On macOS, the hotkey combination is Option+X, and it can be changed in Just Color Picker menu.
To copy the code of the colour to the clipboard, click the Copy Value button: it will copy the whole content of the colour code field, or its selected part if you selected a part of the code beforehand.
The RGB/HSV/HSL colour editor contains the latest-picked colour or the selected colour, which you can modify and then pick the resulting colour for your further needs. Use the RGB mode to change red, green or blue components of the colour. Switch to HSV or HSL modes if you need to change the colour’s hue, saturation, and value or lightness.
The harmonious colour scheme generator suggests a few colours that may be a good combination with the latest-picked, selected or being-edited colour. With this feature, you can quickly find a nice colour combination, for example for your web site. Simply choose the main colour of your design, and the colour picker will offer a few colours harmoniously matching with it. These colours are merely an automatic suggestion; you can pick and edit any of them further.
The gradient feature provides you with a wide range of nuances and gradations between the two latest-picked or selected colours, in case you need an in-between colour.
Colour list
All the colours you picked since the launch of the program are displayed in the colour list on the right side of the window. When you close the application, these colours will be automatically saved into a file and reappear in the list when you run the app again.
On Windows, it is a jcpicker.txt file, created in the same location where you placed the jcpicker.exe file. You can delete, move or rename that text file if you wish; in that case Just Color Picker will start with an empty colour list. Via the Colour List menu, you can manually save multiple lists by giving them different names and/or saving them into different locations, and load any of them later by opening the required file via the same menu.
On macOS, due to security limitations, Just Color Picker settings and the automatically-saved colour list are always placed into .cfg and .cfg2 files in the user’s home directory. You can also save and open colour lists manually via the Colour List menu. Note that macOS does not permit saving files into protected folders like Applications.
To select a colour in the list, simply click the colour line. This will make the colour active and its code will be displayed in the colour code field ready to be copied or edited. You can move the selected colour line up or down in the list using mouse drag-and-drop. A right-click on a selected colour line allows you to copy the colour code to the clipboard, add or edit a comment for the colour, or delete the colour from the list. Colour comments can be of a great assistance in large design projects, or to those with colour vision deficiencies or colour blindness. You can delete a colour from the list by selecting it with a left-click and then pressing the Delete key.
The colour list is connected to the standard Windows Color Dialog and macOS Color Picker. Double click a colour in the list to open it in the operating system’s colour dialog. If you edited the colour in the dialog and clicked Ok, the new colour will override the original colour in the Just Color Picker list. If you wish to keep the original colour, pick the new colour from the dialog with Just Color Picker and then click Cancel in the dialog: this will add the new colour to the colour list, leaving the original colour unchanged.
In addition to colour codes, some colours have a common English HTML colour name. Currently, most browsers support 140 colour names, also called “web colors”. The colour comment feature of Just Color Picker can be used for detecting when a picked colour has an HTML colour name. For that, simply download, unpack and add this Web Color List file to Just Color Picker via menu Colour List – Open. After that, when you pick a colour that also has a name, it will be shown in the list with its corresponding name in the comment. Note that per W3C definition, the names aqua and cyan refer to the same colour code, and fuchsia and magenta have the same colour code.
Code-to-Colour conversion
For the inverse process of converting colour codes into the corresponding colours, enter the colour code into the colour code field and press Enter. The colour will appear in the colour list and its code will be displayed in the colour code field in exactly the same way as if you picked the colour from the screen.
Just Color Picker can convert HEX and RGB codes into colours:
- To convert a HEX code, enter the six-character colour code with or without the preceding # symbol and press Enter.
- To convert an RGB code, enter the three digital parts of the colour code (from 0 to 255) separating the parts with commas, semicolons and/or spaces and press Enter.
If Just Color Picker does not display the colour after you pressed Enter, it means the colour code has been entered incorrectly. Correct the input and press Enter again.
Screen freeze
The screen freeze feature (Windows only) is handy for picking the original colour of an element that changes its colour when the mouse cursor hovers over it.
Before you begin using the screen freeze feature, first open Hotkeys menu in Options and set a key combination for screen freeze by selecting it and pressing your chosen keys (for example, Ctrl+Shift+Z), then press Ok. Make sure to choose a combination that is not already used for something else in another program you have on your computer.
To pick the colour from screen any element before it changes, press the screen freeze key combination, then hover the mouse over the element and press the colour-picking combination (default Alt+X). This will grab the original colour and unfreeze the screen. The screen can also be unfrozen without picking a colour by simply pressing the screen freeze key combination again.
Point lock
The point lock feature locks the sampling point on the screen and displays the colour of that point regardless where the mouse cursor is. This can be handy when working with video and animation. If you wish to use point lock feature, first open Hotkeys menu in Options and set a key combination for it by pressing the keys (for example, Ctrl+Shift+X). Make sure to choose a combination that is not already used for something else in another program you have on your computer. Now, to lock the colour sampling point, hover the mouse over the pixel you want to lock and press the point lock hotkeys. Just Color Picker will keep displaying the colour of that pixel even after you move the mouse somewhere else. If Just Color Picker window is active, you can pick the displayed colour using the colour-picking key combination. To unlock the sampling point, press the point lock hotkey again.
Main menu
Options
Just Color Picker features 3x, 9x and 15x zoom of the mouse cursor area. Use the Zoom menu to change the zoom magnification or to switch it off. You can also use PageUp/PageDown keys for zooming in and out whenever Just Color Picker window is active with the Zoom enabled.
Colour Sample Area menu offers an option for picking either the exact colour of a single pixel, or an average colour value of a 3 by 3, 5 by 5, or 7 by 7 pixel area with the pixel pointed at in the centre of the area. When the 3 by 3 Average, 5 by 5 Average, or 7 by 7 Average option is chosen, a grey rectangle bounding the averaged pixels appears in the zoom field, and a “3×3 Avg”, “5×5 Avg”, or “7×7 Avg” label is shown in the current colour area.
To set or change the hotkeys, go to the Hotkeys menu. Select a new hotkey combination for picking the colour value, freezing the screen or locking the sampling point by pressing the keys, which will be displayed in the window, then click Ok. Be careful: do not choose a combination that is already assigned to another program, otherwise the combinations may not work correctly in either of the programs.
The Mouse click colour capture option enables the capture of the pixel colour under the mouse cursor when the pressed left mouse button is released. This feature is available on Windows only and works along with the hotkey combination. The interface of Just Color Picker itself is excluded from click colour capture, except for the selected colour, gradient, colour scheme generator and colour wheel areas.
The Auto Copy option enables automatic copying of the latest-picked colour code to the clipboard.
The enabled Lowercase Code option displays the letter characters of HEX and TColor colour codes in lowercase. This setting does not affect CSS prefixes, which are always lowercase.
Use the Show CSS code option to display colour values in the colour code field in CSS syntax. This option is applicable to HEX, RGB, HSL, HWB and CMYK colour formats and will display, for example, the red colour as #FF0000, rgb(255 0 0), hsl(0 100% 50%), hwb(0 0% 0%) and cmyk(0% 100% 100% 0%) respectively.
The Separator option sets the character that separates the components of multi-part colour codes: RGB, RGB[0,1], HSB/HSV, HSL, HSL(255), HSL(240), HWB, CMY and CMYK. This option also affects CSS codes. Choose the space separator to display CSS colour functions in the modern syntax; or choose comma to display the legacy syntax.
Enabling the Stay on Top option will keep Just Color Picker window over all other program windows until you close it, minimize it, or disable the Stay on Top option.
Tools
The Tools menu contains the Colour Wheels and Text tools.
The Colour Wheels tool displays RGB (Red, Green, Blue) / CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow), and RYB (Red, Yellow, Blue) colour wheels for the latest-picked or selected colour. The colour wheels have the selected colour, triads and complementary colours marked, and contain as many colours as set in the Number of Colours option. You can open any number of wheel windows to compare the colours. Please note that white, black and shades of neutral grey are not technically colours: they do not have hue or saturation, and therefore they do not produce a corresponding colour wheel.
The Text tool helps to determine whether a particular combination of font colour and background colour is going to look good and be easy to read. The tool becomes available whenever you picked two or more colours. It offers a comprehensive list of all fonts installed in your system, a list of standard font sizes with an option to enter a custom font size, and a copy of the picked colour list for choosing the font and background colours. The window can be resized to accommodate larger fonts and longer texts.
Colour List
If you want to keep some colours separately for future use, go to the Save As menu to save the colour list to a new text file. Use the Open menu item to load it back later. The Clear All command clears the list. You can also save the picked colours to an HTML file, which displays the picked colours in a more user-friendly format, with colour swatches, but keep in mind that HTML files cannot be loaded back into the colour picker.
By default, with Auto Save option enabled, when you close Just Color Picker, it saves all colours present in its colour list to a file named jcpicker.txt in the directory where you placed jcpicker.exe file. On each start, Just Color Picker opens that file and re-populates the colour list. If jcpicker.txt file has been deleted, moved or renamed, Just Color Picker will start with an empty list. If you disable Auto Save, Just Color Picker will launch with an empty list and will not save any picked colours on exit. The old jcpicker.txt file will remain in the application folder and you can load it again later by re-enabling Auto Save and restarting the application without picking any new colours. If you pick any new colours after re-enabling Auto Save, they will overwrite the old colour list the moment you quit the application.
In addition, Just Color Picker can open, edit and save Adobe Photoshop .aco colour swatches (Adobe Color files) in RGB and HSB format. It can also read, edit and save GIMP .gpl palette files.
Portability
Just Color Picker is a portable application, which means you don’t need to install or un-install it. Simply double click the downloaded jcpicker.exe or jcpicker.dmg file to start using it. If you want to remove Just Color Picker from your computer, all you need to do is close it and delete its file(s).
On Windows, the application file is jcpicker.exe. It creates jcpicker.ini file with its settings and jcpicker.txt file with picked colours in the same folder where you put jcpicker.exe. To move or copy Just Color Picker to another device, you can either copy jcpicker.exe file alone, to start afresh, or copy it with .ini and/or .txt file, to keep your settings and/or colours. If you rename jcpicker.exe, its .ini and .txt files will be created with the new name too.
Do not put jcpicker.exe in Program Files or other protected folders, as the system may not permit Just Color Picker to create new files, which would make it unable to remember your settings or picked colours between sessions. It is best to use a separate folder for all portable programs and place Just Color Picker in its subfolder, e.g. C:\Portables\JustColorPicker\jcpicker.exe, and then create a shortcut to jcpicker.exe and move it wherever you deem most convenient.
On macOS, the application file is jcpicker.dmg. As macOS limits the locations where an app can create new files automatically, Just Color Picker settings and the automatically-saved colour list are placed into Just Color Picker.cfg and Just Color Picker.cfg2 files in the user’s home directory in the .config hidden folder that can be displayed by pressing Command+Shift+.(dot) after opening the home directory in Finder. You can save and open colour lists in different locations manually via the Colour List menu, however macOS does not permit saving files into protected folders like Applications.
About colour code formats
HEX and RGB colour codes consist of three parts that define the combination of Red, Green and Blue colour components. The first two characters of HEX code or the first number of RGB code define the red component, the next two characters or the second number define the green component, and the last two characters or the last number define the blue. The value of each part of the colour code can vary from 00 to FF for HEX, from 0 to 255 for RGB, and from 0 to 1 for RGB [0,1].
HSB and HSV. The HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness) or HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) colour codes define a colour in terms of the following three components:
Hue (H) gives the colour its name, such as “pink” or “yellow”. Hue ranges from 0 to 360 degrees and looks like a colour wheel, starting with primary red at 0°, passing through green at 120°, blue at 240° and then wrapping back to red at 360°; all mixtures between the adjacent pairs of colours are linear.
HSB/HSV Saturation (S) is the purity of the colour, a measure of the amount of white mixed with a pure hue. The lower the saturation of a colour, the more faded or dull the colour looks. The higher the saturation, the purer and more intense the colour appears. Mixing pure colours with white produces so-called tints and reduces saturation. Saturation ranges from 0 to 100%.
Brightness (B)/Value (V) of a colour refers to the amount of black present in the hue. Mixing pure colours with black produces shades and affects the brightness/value of the colours while leaving the saturation unchanged. Value ranges from 0 to 100%, with pure colours at 100%, and near-black colours close to 0%.
Some applications use different ranges for the components. For example, S and V/B can vary from 0 to 1, H may be normalized to 0–100%, or all three components can vary from 0 to 255. Just Color Picker uses the “degree, percent, percent” notation.
HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) has hue (H) defined as in HSB/HSV and ranging from 0 to 360°. The Lightness (L) — sometimes also called Luminance or Luminosity — controls both shading and tinting. The transition from black to a pure hue to white is symmetric and is achieved solely by changing the lightness: at the midpoint of 50% lightness and full saturation the hue is pure; as the lightness decreases below the midpoint, it produces the effect of shading with 0% lightness being black; as lightness increases above 50%, it produces the effect of tinting with 100% lightness being white. When the HSL Saturation (S) — also called Intensity or Chroma — is decreased, the lightness controls the tones of grey: L 0% still produces black, and L 100% — white, but the intermediate lightness values result in greyed colours, or neutral grey tones if S is 0%. In other words, HSL tints and shades have full saturation (S), and only tones — mixtures with both black and white — have saturation less than 100%. Pure colours have lightness (L) 50%. Both saturation and lightness range from 0 to 100%. In addition to the standard HSL (0–360°, 0–100%, 0–100%) Just Color Picker has two other HSL formats with all thee parameters ranging from 0 to 255 in HSL(255) and from 0 to 240 in HSL(240).
If you require the parameters to be in the 0–1.0 range, you can easily convert it using percent: e.g. 73% = 0.73.
CMYK is a colour model used in colour printing. It refers to the four printer inks — Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black); with each value ranging from 0 to 100. Because both RGB and CMYK colour spaces are device-dependent, there is no perfect general conversion formula between them. Just Color Picker uses the simplest conversion, sufficient for most design applications.
CMY format consists of three elements — Cyan, Magenta and Yellow — each ranging from 0 to 100. It produces codes similar to CMYK for pure hues and tints; however once the colour moves into shades or tones (black is added), CMY codes start to differ from CMYK due to the black component becoming a part of C, M and Y instead of being separated into K.
HWB is a colour model developed as a more intuitive alternative to HSV and HSL, and is supposed to be easier to use. The hue (H) component is the same as in HSV and HSL. Each pure hue can also have whiteness (W) and blackness (B) ranging from 0 to 100%.
TColor format is used in programming languages such as Object Pascal and Delphi, and integrated development environments such as Lazarus. It is a hexadecimal number representing RGB colour in the $BBGGRR format. For example, $FF0000 is pure full-intensity blue, and $0000FF is pure red.
Using keyboard for a greater mouse pointer precision on Windows
There are two ways to move the mouse cursor using the keyboard. The simple way: make sure Just Color Picker window is active and press Ctrl + ArrowKeys.
The global way: Windows offers the Mouse Keys option for controlling the mouse cursor with keyboard. To be able to move the mouse pointer with keys on your keyboard, you need to switch this feature on:
- In Windows XP: Start button – Settings – Control Panel – Accessibility Options – Mouse tab – Check “Use MouseKeys”.
- In Windows 7: Start button – Control Panel – Ease of Access, and then click Ease of Access Center to open Ease of Access Center. Click “Make the mouse easier to use”. Now, under “Control the mouse with the keyboard”, check the “Turn on Mouse Keys” box.
- In Windows 8: go to Control Panel – All Control Panel Items – Ease of Access Center – Make the mouse easier to use. Check the “Turn on Mouse Keys” box.
Now you should be able to use the numeric keypad on your keyboard for moving the mouse pointer as follows:
- 1 – down and to the left
- 2 – down
- 3 – down and to the right
- 4 – left
- 6 – right
- 7 – up and to the left
- 8 – up
- 9 – up and to the right
This function is a part of Windows and Just Color Picker has no control over it. Enabling this option will affect the whole system, not only Just Color Picker.
Using keyboard for a greater mouse pointer precision on macOS X
There are two ways to move the mouse cursor using the keyboard. The simple way: make sure Just Color Picker window is active and press Option/Alt + ArrowKeys.
The global way: you can enable Mouse Keys and use the keyboard or numeric keypad for moving the mouse pointer and pressing the mouse button. To enable Mouse Keys, press Command+Option+F5 and select the checkbox. Or go to Apple menu, then System Preferences, click Accessibility, click Mouse & Trackpad, then select the Enable Mouse Keys checkbox.
With a numeric keypad:
- To move the mouse pointer, use the 7, 8, 9, 4, 6, 1, 2, 3 keys
- To click the mouse button, press 5
- To press and hold the mouse button, press 0 (zero)
- To release the mouse button, press . (period)
With the keyboard:
- To move the mouse pointer, use the 7, 8, 9, U, O, J, K, L keys
- To click the mouse button, press I
- To press and hold the mouse button, press M
- To release the mouse button, press . (period)
Note: when Mouse Keys is on, you can’t use the keyboard or numeric keypad to enter text.
Disclaimer
This product is distributed “as is”. No warranty of any kind is expressed or implied. You use this software at your own risk. The author is not liable for data loss, damages, loss of profits or any other kind of loss incurred directly or indirectly while downloading, using or performing any other action in relation to this software. The author has no control over the quality, safety and integrity of any copy of this software published on third-party sites.
Questions, Answers, Troubleshooting
I’m pressing the default hotkey combination Alt+X, but the Color Picker is not picking the colour.
The hotkey combination may be already assigned to another application installed on your computer. To fix the problem, simply choose a different hotkey combination in the Color Picker’s Options menu.
How to change or clear out the hotkeys that have been set earlier.
To change a hotkey combination, go to Options menu, then Hotkeys. Select the hotkey you wish to change, press a new key combination, and click Ok.
To delete a set hotkey, exit Just Color Picker application, then go to the location where you placed its files, and open jcpicker.ini file in a text editor, for example Notepad. If you want to delete the Screen Freeze hotkey, find the line beginning with HotkeyFreeze=…, and replace the number after the “=” sign with a zero. The line should become HotkeyFreeze=0. For deleting the Point Lock hotkey do the same for the HotkeyLock=… line. Save the changes and close the file. It is not recommended to delete the main hotkey, as you will be unable to pick any colours until you assign a new combination for that function.
On Windows: when working in another program and Just Color Picker is simply open in the background, the screen freezes when certain keys are pressed.
Go to Options menu, then Hotkeys, and check if that key combination is assigned to the Screen Freeze feature. You can change the combination in Just Color Picker to eliminate the clash.
On macOS: Just Color Picker does not see the colours of other apps, images, webpages, etc.; it shows only the colours of the desktop and its own window.
In newer macOS versions, an app that picks colours from the screen needs your permission to access your screen. To give it such permission, open Apple menu, then System Settings, then Privacy & Security. Scroll down until you see Screen & System Audio Recording. Add Just Color Picker app to the Screen Recording permission list. Restart Just Color Picker app for the changes to take effect.
Just Color Picker doesn’t record your screen, but it needs this permission to be able to take the colours of the screen pixels.
Just Color Picker keeps picking the same grey/black colour no matter what colour the mouse is pointing to.
Open Mouse Properties in Windows Control Panel, go to Pointer Options and make sure that the “Display pointer trails” setting is disabled. Mouse cursor trails add an extra layer to the mouse pointer and make the colour picker pick the colour of the tip of the mouse pointer rather than the underlying colours.
Why does Color Picker sometimes show slightly different colour codes for exactly same colour?
Occasionally, the colour code you set in the colour editor may be slightly different the code for the same colour displayed in the current colour area. This happens as a result of the rounding discrepancy that arises from calculations during colour format conversions. The difference is usually no greater that 1 gradation and should not be significant enough to become obvious to the human eye. For the same reason you may see a small difference in colour codes when using different software.
How to uninstall Just Color Picker? I can’t find it in the list of installed programs in Windows.
Just Color Picker is portable software and therefore doesn’t need to be installed or uninstalled. To start using Just Color Picker, simply download and run it: it is immediately ready for use, nothing is being installed, and this is why Just Color Picker doesn’t appear in the list of installed software. To delete Just Color Picker from your computer, simply close it and delete the jcpicker.exe file with, if present, jcpicker.ini and jcpicker.txt files in the same folder.
Please note: some third-party websites wrap the original program files into their own installers, which may contain unwanted add-ons or even malicious code. Therefore, it is always wise to download Just Color Picker from annystudio.com rather than from any other site. Only downloading the program directly from the author’s site can guarantee that you are getting the original, clean, portable application without any unwanted additions.
Can Just Color Picker be used in a commercial environment (for example, in a professional design studio)?
Yes. You can use Just Color Picker wherever you like, provided you comply with the copyright conditions.
We would like to publish a note about your software in a magazine/ include your software into cover CD/ publish on a web-site/ etc. and want to ask your permission.
Just Color Picker has no limits on its usage and distribution as long as the program file is not modified in any way (including its incorporation into any downloaders/installers or addition of advertisement) and you comply with the copyright section. You can share Just Color Picker with friends and colleagues, burn it onto CDs, DVDs or other media, include it onto cover CDs, publish notes in magazines, write articles on other website, share the information about it via social media, or upload it to software archives without asking permission. Your efforts in making this little program more popular and any additional links to annystudio.com website are appreciated.
I like your free software. What can I do for you in return?
You can help to make Just Color Picker more widely used by recommending it to your friends and colleagues, or by adding comments and reviews about Just Color Picker on the sites and social media you use. You can also make a donation to a worthy cause.
Version History (Changelog)
| Version | Release Date | What’s New |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1 | 10 February 2025 | Excluded the interface of Just Color Picker from mouse click colour capture, except for the selected colour, gradient, colour scheme generator and colour wheel areas. |
| 6.0 | 10 May 2024 | Colour capture via mouse clicks (this feature is available on Windows only). |
| 5.9 | 10 July 2023 | Separator menu option that affects all colour formats consisting of multiple parts; merged and HTML and HEX code formats; renamed Delphi format to TColor; fixed the bug where the colour code could alter slightly after changing its format or making a selection in the colour list. |
| 5.8 | 9 May 2023 | Dark mode. |
| 5.7 | 1 Dec 2022 | Fixed the issue where Just Color Picker failed to launch from certain file system locations; other minor bug fixes. |
| 5.6 | 23 Sep 2021 | Improved zoom area rendering on macOS; Auto Save option for Colour List. |
| 5.5 | 1 Oct 2020 | Point Lock feature; colour list comment alignment; bug fixes and minor improvements. Colour codes are now saved to jcpicker.txt file without whitespaces, to facilitate Just Color Picker’s integration with other software. Added automatic colour list saving and loading on macOS. |
| 5.4 | 31 Mar 2020 | Lowercase Code option for HTML; HEX and Delphi colour formats. System-independent decimal separator in RGB[0, 1] format, always displayed as a dot regardless of the country settings. |
| 5.3 | 5 Dec 2019 | Stretchable colour list with automatically saved colours on application exit. |
| 5.2 | 22 Jan 2019 | Added CMY format; improved input check for code-to-colour conversion; upgraded macOS application file from 32 to 64 bit. This is the last version with the ability to fold/hide the bottom half of the application window: Just Color Picker 5.2 (exe, 32-bit) |
| 5.1 | 19 Mar 2018 | Improved handling of high DPI screens; corrected cursor positioning in multi-screen setups; added 7×7 pixel averaged colour sampling. This is the last 32-bit macOS version: Just Color Picker 5.1 (dmg) |
| 5.0 | 15 Jan 2018 | Improved handling of larger system fonts; added HWB and RGB Integer colour formats; added Screen Freeze feature for sampling the colour of the elements that change on mouse-hover (Windows only). |
| 4.6 | 11 May 2016 | Added automatic copying of the latest-picked colour code to the clipboard; improved support of Grayscale and CMYK colour spaces in .aco files; comments for identical colours are now combined into one line separated by semicolons. |
| 4.5 | 9 Mar 2016 | Added the option to display and copy CSS-compatible colour codes for Hexadecimal/HTML, RGB and HSL formats; added interaction with the standard Windows and macOS colour dialogs. |
| 4.4 | 23 Nov 2015 | Added PageUp/PageDown key support for zooming in and out; added moving the mouse cursor with keyboard on macOS: Option/Alt + ArrowKeys. |
| 4.3 | 19 Mar 2015 | Added the ability to re-order the colour entries in the colour list using mouse drag-and-drop; added the calculation of the horizontal and vertical distance between the two latest-picked pixels for measuring the size of objects and gaps; improved adaptability of the interface font size; added Delphi TColor code format. |
| 4.2 | 16 Oct 2014 | Ability to open, edit and save Photoshop’s .aco colour swatches (Adobe Color files) and GIMP’s .gpl palette files. |
| 4.1 | 1 Oct 2014 | Improved precision of the colour code calculation; new colour scheme generator. |
| 4.0 | 8 Jul 2014 | Added CMYK colour format; improved multiple monitor support: now the primary monitor can be either side; released macOS version. |
| 3.5 | 10 Apr 2014 | Added multiple monitors support; added moving the mouse cursor with keyboard: Ctrl + ArrowKeys; fixed two bugs: always-black current colour area on Windows 7, and the application becoming unresponsive when the Stay-on-Top option was enabled. |
| 3.4 | 20 Mar 2014 | Added high-DPI screen support; added saving of HTML colour list files. The program has been completely re-written to keep up with the modern devices and systems. New icon, Picky the Chameleon. Like Just Color Picker, he is small, quick, good-looking, and is good at choosing and matching colours. |
| 3.3 | 3 Oct 2013 | Added standard HSL colour editor; fixed a minor bug in HSL colour format; the Text tool now can display bold headers. |
| 3.2 | 25 Mar 2013 | Added standard HSL colour format to complement the existing HSL(255) and HSL(240). |
| 3.1 | 19 Jan 2013 | Added the option to always open the same colour history file on start; fixed the flickering issue in some interface elements. |
| 3.0 | 17 Oct 2012 | Added Text Tool for evaluating the readability of the selected font and background colour combinations; added the .ini file creation. |
| 2.6 | 1 Sep 2011 | Added full red-green-blue (RGB) and red-yellow-blue (RYB) colour wheels with user-defined number of colours. |
| 2.5 | 9 May 2011 | Added averaged colour picking, for picking colours in the areas with colour noise. |
| 2.4 | 4 Feb 2010 | Added the ability to add a comment for each picked colour. |
| 2.2 | 1 Nov 2009 | Just Color Picker became Unicode, so all languages should now be displayed correctly. If some parts of the interface are not displayed in your language, it simply means the translation is old or incomplete. |
| 1.9 | 1 Jun 2008 | Added multilingual interface; added HSV colour editor; added new colour history features. |
| … | … | … |
| 1.0 | 2003 | The first version of the Color Picker. Very small and simple; just a colour picker. |
Did you ever wonder how to get the color code of a beautiful color you find in a webpage or a document? Many times, you come across a banner on a webpage or background color in an app and want to use the same color for your own design. By default, Windows do not offer a color picker to select an item and copy its color codes. However, there are free apps and browser extensions that you can use for picking colors with additional options. In this article, we will explain some popular ways to use color picker in Windows.
Selecting color picker app depends on the purpose you want to use. We will explain the following three ways using different apps and extension.
- Systemwide color picker to copy the color code to clipboard.
- Color picker extension for Edge to use only on the browser.
- Color picker for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
1. Systemwide Color Picker Using Microsoft PowerToys
The best option to use color picker in Windows PC is to use Microsoft PowerToys app. This is a free and official app from Microsoft which you can install from Microsoft Store. It comes with more than 10 free utilities to power up your computer. Here we will focus on the Color Picker tool and check out our guide on PowerToys to understand about all the available tools.
Click the Microsoft Store app icon showing on the taskbar of your Windows 11 PC. If you are not finding the icon or using Windows 10, click on the search icon to search for “store” and open Microsoft Store app.
When you are in Microsoft Store, search for “powertoys” and install the Microsoft PowerToys app. Remember, this app will work only on Windows 11 and 10 versions and not on earlier versions.
After installing the app, open it either from Start menu or by using Windows search. The name of the app will show as “PowerToys (Preview) in Start menu programs list and in the search results.
When the PowerToys app opens, go to Color Picker section turn the switch on against “Enable Color Picker” option. Now, you can start using the Color Picker systemwide using the default settings or customize the settings as per your need.
- The default shortcut to open Color Picker is “Win + Shift + C”. You can click on the pencil icon next to the shortcut keys to assign a new shortcut if you need.
- You have three options to set the activation behavior – only pick a color, open editor and pick a color and open editor.
- PowerToys Color Picker offers 13 different color formats and choose your favorite format from the “Default color format” dropdown. The available formats include CMYK, HEX, HSB, HSI, HSL, HSV, HWB, NCol, RGB, CIE LAB, CIE XYZ, VEC4 and Decimal. We have not seen any other color picker tool offers these many formats.
- Enable “Show color name” switch to show the name of the color when you pick.
- Since there are too many color formats are available, showing all of them will be congested in the editor. Therefore, you can disable unnecessary formats and rearrange the order under “Editor” section.
Only Pick a Color and Copy to Clipboard
When you finished the setup, press “Win + Shift + C” or the keyboard shortcut you setup to open the color picker. If you have only selected “Only pick a color” for activation behavior, then you will see a color palette attached to the mouse pointer showing the color name and code in the set default format. The color picker will pick the color dynamically while you move mouse pointer over the objects. Click the mouse to copy the selected color to clipboard in default color format. Now, you can paste the copied color code from clipboard anywhere you want. If you do not want to copy the color, simply press escape key to quit the color picker.
Note: You can copy multiple colors to clipboard by enabling clipboard history option in Windows as explained in this article.
Open Editor or Pick Color and Open Editor
If you have selected the activation behavior as “Open editor”, then pressing the shortcut keys will open the Color Picker editor of PowerToys tool. Similarly, for “Pick a color and open editor” behavior, pressing the shortcut keys will first show the color palette with mouse pointer. When you select a color, the tool will open the editor for customizing the selected color.
- The editor will show the list of color formats as you have enabled in the PowerToys settings page.
- You can find the historically picked colors in the left sidebar for selection.
- Click the pencil icon showing on top left corner of the editor to pick a new color.
- Click the gear icon to open PowerToys Color Picker settings page.
- You can find click to copy icon next to each color code format, click on it to copy the color code to clipboard.
- Press escape or click close icon to quit the editor.
If you want to customize the selected color, click on the different sections of the color band. For example, click on the center portion to open additional options for manually editing HSV, RGB and HEX values of the color code. You can see the preview based on your adjustment to help you to visualize the color codes dynamically.
2. Color Picker Extension for Edge
Microsoft Edge comes with a default color picker tool as part of its DevTools. Simply right-click on a page and select “Inspect” option to open DevTools. Click on any CSS property for colors (like background-color) to view the color picker. You can use the color picker (pencil icon) to pick any color from the webpage and get its color code. Click on the arrow marks in the color picker to change the format and customize the selected color.
You can also use PowerToys Color Picker in Edge to pick the colors as explained above. If you want a custom Edge add-on that works only on the Edge, then go to Microsoft Edge add-on page. Search for “color picker” and install Just Color Picker extension.
After installing the extension, open any webpage and click on “Alt + P” shortcut keys. This will show the color codes in RGB and HEX formats on lower right corner tracking mouse pointer. Press the left mouse key to copy the color code of the object to clipboard.
If you want to see the editor, click on the extension icon showing next to address bar. This will open the editor showing recently picked colors and an option to pick a new color from the webpage. Click on the color code to copy to clipboard and use the arrows to change the format. Though this is a cool extension, it offers only three color codes in RGB, HSL and HEX formats.
3. Using Color Picker in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
Word and PowerPoint apps offer an in-built color picker when you draw objects.
- Go to “Draw” menu and select the pen from “Drawing Tools” group.
- After selecting the pe, click on the small down arrow showing on the selected pen to open color options.
- Click “More Colors” showing at the bottom of the dropdown.
- This will open color picker to choose colors from standard and custom tabs.
- Go to “Custom” tab and pick up a color or set RGB/HSL/HEX codes to find its corresponding color.
Though in-built color picker tool is useful to select color for pens, it will not allow to pick color from the document or from other objects.
Final Words
If you really need a color picker that works systemwide, then we strongly recommend using PowerToys Color Picker tool. PowerToys also comes with handful of useful tools for splitting screen, mapping keys, etc. Good part is that you can set a custom keyboard shortcut to open color picker and any time enable/disable the tool from the settings page. However, if you only want to use color picker in Edge, then choosing an extension is sufficient. The color picker in Word and PowerPoint is a quick tool to adjust the pen colors and not much useful for other purposes.