WhatColor

There are an abundance of colors and tints, which makes it close to impossible to know names by heart, let alone corresponding codes to use in programming. Chances are you’re really interested in a particular tint and want to use it, but don’t really know how to get it. Luckily, there are various specialized applications like WhatColor to help you out.

The application can be launched right after setup is over. A pretty compact window shows up on the desktop. There are several view modes to use, such as the default one, a full view, or compact mode which only displays small preview, code, and name of the color under the mouse.

In terms of output, the application is capable of instantly showing the HEX code of the color, but also decimal, HSV and HLS. However, it can even help you remember the color because it also shows the name, with an impressive database. Some particular tints like gray can show up with percentage value, which can be of great help.

By default, the application shows the exact color under the cursor. There’s a configurable magnification panel for more selection accuracy. You can enable dither processing, which blends all colors in a particular region. For greater details, the full mode shows a color wheel and how far off from the true color your selection is.

Accessing the settings panel lets you manage a whole lot of behavior and view options. You can choose the values to display, adjust the magnification level, make it run with Windows, run in the tray area, specify a hotkey to copy code value to clipboard, and even enable voice to actually tell you the name of the color.

All things considered, we can state that WhatColor is a powerful desktop color picker which can not only deliver the corresponding color code of anything under the cursor, but also provides a readable name which can be spoken to you.