Gpick vs iWantHue

Gpick is a free, open-source color picker and palette editor for Linux. It samples colors from the desktop, with magnification and keyboard control of the pointer, and can assign names to colors automatically. Palette tools let users build palettes from images, generate schemes, mix colors, adjust lightness or saturation, and create harmonious colors. For noisy or patterned sources, oversampling averages multiple pixel values using five falloff types. Gpick imports and exports Inkscape/GIMP palettes and Adobe Swatch Exchange files; export options also include MTL, CSS, HTML, and customizable text files. HTML exports can be shared as palette previews with people who do not use palette software. A floating mode provides a pointer-following window and notification-area icon for basic picking, but excludes palette editing and color adjustment. Command-line arguments let other programs and scripts use Gpick. Downloads include Debian and Ubuntu packages for amd64 and source archives. The project repository identifies its license as BSD-3-Clause.

iWantHue generates and refines color palettes for data scientists working with data visualization. Users can set hue, chroma, and lightness constraints, then sort colors by difference, hue, chroma, lightness, or randomly. Its calculations use CIE Lab, with HCL controls, and palette distribution uses either k-means clustering or force-vector repulsion. An option helps improve palettes for colorblind users. The web interface exports HEX, RGB, HCL, and LAB JSON, CSS color lists, and JavaScript settings. Developers can install the JavaScript package with npm for Node.js or browser use; its generator accepts a seed to reproduce a palette from a data attribute. The npm module also includes precomputed palettes from 2 to 15 colors, including colorblind alternatives. Very large palettes may include similar colors when the selected color space is constrained, though the first colors are arranged for the greatest possible distinction. The Fancy preset is limited to generic palettes of up to 10 colors. iWantHue is free.