Color Finesse

Another nice tool that we "can't" afford ($600) is the Color Finesse Synthetic Aperture. This product is specifically geared towards photography and video color correction and adaptation. The great difference between this tool and the Color Munki is that Color Finesse draws strength from using gain, gamma, pedestal, hue and saturation to affect the color within the image.

Some of the options in this product are similar to programs like Photoshop. However, Color Finesse works with a '6-channel secondary color corrector' that allows you to select 6 seperate colors within the image and to manipulate their characteristics together. This allows for a more atmospheric difference between the two programs.

The downside in working with Color Finesse is its limited program compatibility. Currently it is a plug-in (thats right, this is a $600 plug-in) for After Effects, Final Cut Pro, & Premiere Pro. If you would like to spend even more money then there is a version that works with CS3/CS4.

Color Munki

Color Munki is a spectrophotometer geared to read a physical object for color and then design an entire palette of over 50 colors that are similar based on imput data (i.e. complimentary, color, hue, saturation, etc...) Once you have these palette they can easily be imported into creative software for use, without the hassle of having to select each entry one-by-one.

...the software for the tool is similar to i-tunes.

The sad part about this tool is it's price: $499 ... that's rather expensive for those who are not working professionally.

Java Color Tool

The 'color tool' is designed to provide designers with views of the perceptual relationships among possible color choices. This helps in the management of symbol and background colors in their relationships through hue and saturation. Luminosity of the background is also a great advantage of this software since it allows the designer to directly view their affects without needless application.