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I have a darkish blue color #3c5c7c. I need a medium blue color to go with it.

I know there are tools like www.colllor.com that can show me shades/tints of a selected color. But what I want is to select another blue color that offers some contrast to #3c5c7c but also "looks" like the two colors go well together.

For example, I found #62A3E4 is one such color. How do I find other (blue) colors? As another example, #0000ff doesn't appear to go well with #3c5c7c, or am I wrong?

What tools are available that allow me to view those blues that go well with #3c5c7c?

I see there's www.colorschemedesigner.com, but it just shows different shades/tints of one color that you enter. When you move the little circles around, the other colors are not blue (they're immediately green or purple). For example, I wouldn't see how I could get #62A3E4 from that website.

How does one explore the blue color space and know which blues "go with" with other blues?

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    I don't think there is a tool that will tell you color that "go well" with others. Color theory is REALLY subjective, in a way. Formulas can only get you so far, but your eye is probably the best tool for the job. – Yisela Jun 6 '14 at 3:09
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    I would consider using Adobe Kuler to populate a color palette. – DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ Jun 6 '14 at 3:11
  • Yah, that makes sense @Yisela. For those of us who do not fully trust their instincts, are there any tools that can help? I also see colourlovers.com has a search tool where you can enter a hex value, but it seems the values I enter don't return any results. With so many colors available, that's understandable I guess. – ggkmath Jun 6 '14 at 3:13
  • @Gramps, do you mean kuler.adobe.com/create/color-wheel ? If so, I see where I can enter my base color, then drag the circles around for the other colors... does this mean when I drag these circles around that whatever it returns guarantee it "goes with" the base color? Or, is there some chance the generated colors don't match? – ggkmath Jun 6 '14 at 3:16
  • Did you see this related question? The second answer especially! – Yisela Jun 6 '14 at 3:19
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I think I know the right tool for you: http://pltts.me/

Click the search icon (top center), paste your hex code. Pltts will recommend some cool color palettes based on hex you provide.

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When I was first starting I was using tools, they help you learn color theory. here are a few that can get you started

https://kuler.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/ (also has a photoshop pluggin) this one allows you to input a specific color like you need.

http://www.colourlovers.com/

also if you want to dive deeper read about the actual theory behind how these are chosen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory

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"what I want is to select another blue color that offers some contrast to #3c5c7c but also "looks" like the two colors go well together."

If you're just looking at two kind of different shades of blue, there's nothing a palette tool can say. A blue that is a little more yellow isn't somehow "bad" and one that is a little more green is "good". If they share most of the same color and are just tinted a little bit, then you'd need more than two colors to say what a shade is supposed to fit in with.

The feature of Adobe Kuler that's good, in my opinion, isn't the circles and the dots. That is a waste of time. What might save you time is the feature where you can upload a photo and it makes palettes. You have to push the camera icon in the upper right.

That's good if you're trying to make something to integrate with a photo. But it's also good even if you just pick a picture of anything (book covers from Amazon can be good) and want to quickly make a palette out of it, even if the photo isn't in what you're drawing.

One thing to watch out for is that the color you draw with isn't always the color you get. When you save your images look at them on a few different computers.

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  • I meant that if something takes in a color, and gives you another color, there is a reason you are finding it hard to get a color in proximity. If you feed in one color and get another color out, the reason the tool exists is to give you something which has good contrast. You need more than two colors to think if a shade fits. – Cakey Aug 5 '14 at 10:47

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