Weblog of A Designer

While working online, sometimes it really helps to have a handy web tool that allows the users to try and match different shades, design color palettes, pick up the hexadecimal or RGB or CMYK values of the chosen colors and so on. Following are few online color matching tools and sites dedicated to color matching and color palette design, which I find very helpful. The sites and tools listed below, are arranged alphabetically and does not express any qualitative differences between them.

Adobe Kuler
http://kuler.adobe.com/

Adobe Kuler is an amazing color palette generating tool from Adobe that allows the users to explore various color schemes created by hundreds of other users, create their own palettes and share the same with others. One can upload any image or photograph from hard disk and create color palette based on that uploaded image. Adobe Kuler also allows the users to get images from Flickr and create color scheme from them. Flickr members can also login to their Flickr account and their own images to create color palette with Adobe Kuler. The online version of the application is built with Flash, so before trying this tool one should  make sure to have Flash player installed in the system and the browser supports Flash. Once registered, members can save their color schemes and download then as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator file.

Apart from the online version, Adobe Kuler has a desktop version, as well. The desktop version can be downloaded from this location and it requires Adobe AIR. The site also has a very good Links section, where various useful articles on color theory can accessed.

ColorBlender.Com
http://www.colorblender.com

ColorBlender offers a free online tool for color matching and palette design. It allows to create and edit a 6-color matching palette (which is referred on the site as a “Blend”) in two editing modes – Automatch and Direct Edit. In Automatch mode, once the first color is selected, the ColorBlender will calculate the value of all 5 other colors and display them on the palette itself. Again, each of these 6 colors of the palette could be edited individually, in Direct Editing mode.

Once the color palette has been created and/or edited, ColorBlender allows its users to download the color palette, as Photoshop Color Table (.ACT) or Illustrator Colors (.EPS). It also allows the user to send the palette or “Blend” by mail. The “Blends” could be saved also saved online, and could be accessed whenever the user returns on the site from the same workstation (provided the user’s browser accept cookies).

ColorBlender has recently won the WEB 2.0 Award for 2008, from SEOMOZ.ORG!

ColorHunter.Com
http://www.colorhunter.com

ColorHunter is an online tool that allows the user to upload an image and create color palettes from the uploaded image. It can also generate color palette from any image available online, once the URL of that image is provided. For each image, ColorHunter can generate two palettes – vibrant and dull and the user can toggle between these two palettes to view them. One can also view the color palettes generated by other users and if the user is registered with the site, it will enable them to share his/her color palettes with others, as well.

Colour Lovers
http://www.colourlovers.com/

COLOURlovers is color and design community for creative inspiration It store thousands of color palettes generated by the members. Designers and color strategists can register on the site to explore various color swatches and color palettes and also share their color creations, color palettes, color swatches, and patterns with other members and non-members.

According to the site, COLOURlovers is a resource that monitors and influences color trends. This community is regularly updated with information and examples of the way colors are used in the real world.

Color Palette Generator
http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/

DeGraeve.com’s Color Palette Generator is another online tool that allows the users to enter the URL of an image and get a color palette that matches that image. Unlike ColorHunter, this color palette generator tool does not allow the users to upload an image to get a matching color palette. This tool is very helpful for coming up with a color scheme of a web site that matches any key image chosen for the site.

Color Picker
http://www.degraeve.com/reference/color.php

Color Picker is an online color matching tool from DeGraeve.com. Once the hex code of a particular color is provided, the Color Picker generates 4 different 5-color palettes, based on the main color (the hex color that has been provided in the beginning). Clicking on any color swatches will replace the main color with the color clicked and generate another set of 4 different 5-color palettes, based on the new main color. The only problem with this tool is that it understands only hex code and does not accept or provide RGB or CMYK information.

Color Schemes Generator
http://www.wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

Color Schemes Generator is a full-fledged color matching and color scheme generating tool from wellstyled.com. This is one of the most advanced color matching tool that are available online and free of cost. It has a color wheel that allows the user to choose a color as the base color. Once the base color is chosen, user can choose the type of color palette from Mono, Contrast, Triad, Tetrad and Analogic and define the relationships between the colors in the palette. This tool also allows the user to fine tune each palette type, by changing the angle between the colors on the wheel, adding complementary color, reduce the palette to web-safe color. User can also generate variants of the scheme, like Pastel, Dark Pastel, Light Pastel, Contrast or Pale.

The most amazing feature of this tool is the color blindness check option. Once the color palette is generated, this tool allows the user to check how the palette will look, if viewed by people suffering from various types of color blindness, like Protanopy, Deuteranopy, Tritanopy, Protanomaly, Deuteranomaly, Tritanomaly, Full Colorblindness and Atypical Monochormatism.

WE PROTEST AGAINST VIOLENCE

FEW LINKS TO VARIOUS RESOURCES THAT CARRY VALUABLE AND REVEALING INFORMATION ABOUT THE RECENT DEATHS, MASS-MURDERS, RAPES, VIOLENCE AND ABDUCTIONS, AT NANDIGRAM, WEST BENGAL, INDIA!

• Nandigram Chronology
• Nandigram Genocide - A revealing video
• Nandigram 14.3 - Development-Dialogues
• Nandigram on Development-Dialogues
• Medical Report on Nandigram
• Nandigram Archive on SacredMediaCow
• Nandigram on singur-singur.blogspot
• Protest in Bangalore
• Photos of protest at Bangalore
• Report and photos on BlrMirror
• Report in Hindu on Bangalore protest
• Left is equal to Right in West Bengal
• Nandigram - Citizens’ Report
• Citizens’ Statement on Nandigram
• Nandigram on Sanhati.com
• Nandigram on Youtube.com
• Nandigram on Flickr.com
• Nandigram on Vinnomot.com
• Abhijit Mitra’s Bengali Poetry on Nandigram
• Download protest banners »

[If you know other resources/information/report on protest against Nandigram, please post a comment with the link. I will try to update the list.]

Boipara.com - Online Archive of Bangla Literature has launched a blog as an extension of their effort to archive non-mainstream Bangla literature and little magazines on Internet and make these rare and marginalized literary works accessible to everyone. This extended archive is called Boiparar Blogpara - A Bengali Literature Archive Blog and can be accessed at following location:

http://boipara.blogspot.com

Few important archived materials on this Bangla Literature Archive Blog:

• Bangla Poems of Falguni Roy
• Short Story of Amiyabhushan Majumdar
• Biography of Sandipan Chattopadhyay (part)
• Writings and Portraits: Works of Hiran Mitra

Boipara, being the first and probably the most viewed online Bengali Literature Archive, focusing on Bengali Little Magazines and marginalized literature, is constantly putting their effort to add more and more content to the archive. This Bangla Literature Archive Blog [http://boipara.blogspot.com] is a new initiative taken by Boipara.com as a part of their endless effort to make alternative Bengali Literature and Little Magazines available and accessible to everyone and anyone.

It’s a good news for all aquascape artists and planted tank enthusiasts, who cannot read Chinese! Creative Aquascapes Union has launched the English Version of their amazing website and online gallery - www.cau-aqua.net. Thanks to these great aquascape artists for sharing their works and experiences with hundreds of planted tank enthusiasts of the world, who have been inspired by the works from CAU.

On 1st May, 2007, members of CAU have announced the launch of the English version of Creative Aquascape Union’s website, celebrating their first anniversary, on various major Aquarium forums, like, www.plantedtank.net, www.aquaticplantcentral.com and other related sites.

Justin Law of CAU said,

“..1st May 2006, A Chinese version of CAU launched, we hear a lot of voice request us to translate this site into an English version. We also aware that this international language could help more aquascape lovers around the world to know us. However, from our limited resources and English is not our first language, the progress is very slow, first we have to solve the system issue, then translation, reformat….”

Thanks, Justin! You guys have done a great job! Congratulations!

When I landed on the home page of Creative Aquascape Union (www.cau-aqua.net) I have almost closed it without even clicking on a single link, because the entire site is in Chinese (Well, I am not very sure about that, too!) and there is no English version. I can’t read Chinese, but still, I can see images and I was amazed when I saw their gallery.

The CAU gallery features a series of incredible aquascapes and aquarium photographs by the members of this award winning group of creative aquscape designers. Even if this is a non-english site, the images do not require any text. Each set up has a poetic title (mostly in English), given by the artist himself.

I came across this group called Creative Aquascape Union (CAU) on the Aquatic Gardener’s Showcase while checking out the result of AGA Aquascaping contest for 2006. I immediately noticed Creative Aquascape Union (www.cau-aqua.net) as they have 6 stunning entries including the ‘1st place‘ and ‘Best of the Show‘ title holder in Small category, 4 in medium , ‘2nd place’ in large category, 3 nominations including the one which got the ‘3rd place’ in x-large category and each one has a creative touch on it. Incredible works!

My personal favorite is this one: Green Morning by Harry Kwong. Awesome work! Kudos to you, guys!

I have also found their Maintenance Knowledge and Setup Guide sections very good and helpful and even if they are in Chinese, they have very detailed step-by-step photo documentation of those award winning projects – setting up and care.

[Originally posted on SamitOnline.net on 2007-04-04 and later shifted to SamitRoy.org]

While surfing on the net, I came across this site - dafont.com and almost immediately after I landed on the homepage, it was saved in my Favorites menu. As the name suggests, dafont.com offers hundreds of fonts for various moods, personalities, textures and temperaments. All fonts are available for PC as well as Mac OS X and more excitingly, almost all of them are either Free or Free for Personal Use. The site offers a nice feature - ‘Custom Preview’ which enables the users to type their preferred text to see previews of that in all available fonts.

A thematically categorized list of fonts is available on the site in ‘Themes‘ section. It also offers various font tools for PC and MAC OS and few of them are free, too. I am trying to download and install few of the tools. Especially the ‘The Font Thing’ by Sue Fisher. It says that it will allow me to preview all the fonts in my PC even if they are not installed! Sounds great!

I have started writing a series of articles on how to set up a healthy planted aquarium and other various useful tips in my Nature Aquarium Blog. The second post of this Planted Aquarium Tips series has been just added on my Nature Aquarium Blog and it deals with the pros and cons of pruning the plants in your aquarium. The first post of this Planted Aquarium Tips series was on the ideal substrate for a planted tank and the post can be viewed here. I have been getting positive responses and encouraging notes from the readers, since I started this Nature Aquarium Blog. It seems that serious aquarium hobbyists from various corners of the world are finding this Nature Aquarium Blog and the photographs and information, helpful. This is the reason why I try to bring out little time from my daily schedule to update my Nature Aquarium Blog with information and experiences I have gathered in past years as a serious aquarist.

Internet, being the best resource for virtually any subject under the sun, is also a great resource for aquarium hobbyists. People have been sharing their knowledge and experiences with others on various online forums and communities for years. These forums, like the Krib, fins.actwin.com, IAH, Aquatic Plant Central etc are now being considered as the most valuable online resource for aquarium and fish keeping.

I have been visiting ThinkFish.co.uk, quite regularly for last few years. It is one of my favorite on line resource for aquarium, aqua gardening and fish keeping hobby.

Apart from their rich articles section, their comprehensive fish database and plant database are also very useful for the beginners, as well as experienced aquarium hobbyists. A very comprehensive and illustrative thumbnail lists of fish and plants are also available on their web site for download.

ThinkFish.co.uk is a must bookmark for all aquarists - from beginners to veterans.