BeforeDo ColorPicker

BeforeDo ColorPicker is a lightweight and portable application that can be used to select any color from the desktop and find out its hexadecimal and RGB code. This information can be further used to implement colors into web or graphic design projects, for example.

What sets apart it apart from other similar software is the fact that it has a batch function for displaying the HEX codes of multiple colors on the screen, as well as for capturing the fullscreen to save an image of these codes.

There is no installation involved since the tool is wrapped in just one executable file that can be stored on a USB flash drive and directly launched on any computer without setup. Also, there are no software prerequisites involved, and no entries are added or modified in the registry.

The entire screen becomes inactive when the main window of BeforeDo ColorPicker is brought up front. This allows you to freely explore all visible content on the desktop and find a specific color with the help of zoom functionality.

Zoom is available in a tiny box embedded in the main window, where a single green pixel represents the mouse cursor. Unfortunately, what BeforeDo ColorPicker lacks in this regard is an option that enables users to improve accuracy while moving the mouse (through arrow keys, for example).

The hex and RGB codes of the current color are calculated in real time and shown in the panel. You can press Enter to copy hex or Shift to copy RGB to the clipboard.

If you click and drag between various positions on the desktop, this creates virtual points showing hex labels. This way, you can capture multiple colors on the desktop and easily view their hex tags.

You can also capture the full screen and save the image to file, in order to collect the hex codes of all colors. This doesn't apply to RGB, though, since it's not shown next to the hex.

To make the desktop active again, it's necessary to minimize BeforeDo ColorPicker to the systray. The main window doesn't have an exit option, and this action can only be done from the right-click menu of the systray icon. The context menu also has links to some online services provided by the same developer (for free), like color code conversion and color spectrum.

All aspects considered, BeforeDo ColorPicker seems like a typical color picker when it actually contains a practical option not usually found in such software: displaying the HEX codes of multiple selected colors on the screen. Some stability improvements are necessary, though.