Suck Those Numbers Right From The Screen

I need a tool.

Launch this tool and it will give me the RGB values of a color anywhere on the screen.

Koz

I'd do a screen capture (Command-Shift-3 or Command-Shift-4), and load it into photoshop. Then use the eyedropper tool.

If you had to do it hundreds of times... Perhaps you could find/write a tool... but only a few (or several on one screen), this will work.

-MW

<<<If you had to do it hundreds of times>>>

Yeah. Basically. I need a crosshair and a little floating readout window.

<<<Photoshop..>>>

That would be the desparation method, wouldn't it? I'm terrified that the Photoshop screen management tools would get into the act. That's part of the talent of this tool. A fixed number no matter what it looks like on the screen.

I think there's a tool like that inside the Linux Graphics toolkits, but the Systems People have taken to hiding when they see me coming.

Koz

You have it already (at least on Tiger, not sure about earlier OSs). Go to the Applications > Utilities folder and there's an app called DigitalColor Meter which gives a colour value for whereever the mouse is.

Martin Baker
www.digital-heaven.co.uk
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps

Works with Firefox only but get Web Developer 1.0.2 By Chris Pederick

It's an extension that goes with FF. Place your mouse over anything on the web site and it gives you the source as well as RGB values.

Got the little cros hairs too

Its been invaluable to me as I code the new forums for lafcpug. Be lost without it.

Wow.

Digital Color Meter is cool. Changed the way i do business. :-)

Got Digital Color Meter in Panther too. Nice, never saw it before.

Art Director's Toolkit has a lot of features like that and more, you can get it from [www.code-line.com]. I got mine a few years ago, and it was free, but I don't remember how I qualified for a free copy.

Both work all over the screen, not just web pages.

Scott

<<<Got the little cros hairs too>>>

Cool. This will be fun to play with.

So donning my troublemaker hat, I launched Photoshop and turned this tool loose on the same graphic.

They don't match.

By quite a bit depending on color and gray level.

That tells me that one is operating on the raw graphic (Photoshop) and the other is measuring the graphic filtered through the Screen Characteristic Setup I have chosen.

That begs the question what do the other setups do.

I may get my Troublemaker Oak Leaf Cluster for this one.

Thank yew.

Koz

I use [iconfactory.com] since its inception.

Lets you choose in which way you want to copy the current color to the clipboard. The configurable loupe really helps picking and copying the right color too.

Frank

<<That tells me that one is operating on the raw graphic (Photoshop) and the other is measuring the graphic filtered through the Screen Characteristic Setup I have chosen.>>

I think you're exactly right, although I have nothing to back it up except that I can look at a photo in Preview, then in Photoshop, on the same computer, and the gamma is noticeably different between the two. And different again whether I am looking at it on my Powerbook or iMac,

Which is "right"?

Scott

<<<Which is "right"?>>>

If you believe the Mac Party Line, they all are.

The object to all the behind the scenes manipulation that Macs do is to make the same graphic appear exactly the same on every screen no matter what. Oh, and to match the printing press output if you swing that way.

If you go through the calibrations on all your screens and they're all balanced to daylight and they're all matched to their characteristics and you didn't irritate any of the video gods, it does actually work.

Nobody does that.

So now you have a lot of very different display services all aligned differently and the Macs changing the gamma and brightnesses of the work to "help you."

It's not a lot of help.

If you want even more chaos, try integrating non-Mac equipment.

I posted an official complaint about this at Apple.

PLEASE stop helping us......

Koz

go into Boris 3D and pick up the eye dropper tool. Point it anywhere -- absolutely anywhere, even outside the application, anywhere on the monitor -- and you'll get the exact color at that point reflected in your Boris titling window. Sorry if this is not what you need.