Sampling a color

Suisai lets you sample colors from anywhere on your displays, even while working in another application. Use the system loupe, a keyboard shortcut, the menu bar dropper, or enter a color value directly.

Pick a color from the screen

Quick Pick to Clipboard (⌥⌘P) opens the macOS color-sampling loupe from any application, as long as Suisai is running. There’s no need to bring Suisai forward or grant Screen Recording permission.

Move the loupe to the pixel you want and click. Suisai copies the color to your clipboard in your chosen code format and adds it to your recent picks in the menu bar.

Hold a modifier key while clicking to choose where the sampled color goes:

Hold	Result
`⇧` Shift	Add the color directly to the open palette
`⌘` Command	Set the First Seed in a harmony or ramp
`⌥` Option	Set the Last Seed, where supported by the harmony or ramp

Press Esc or right-click to cancel without changing anything.

Three colors sampled from a photograph, each added to the palette with its name

Suisai keeps a dropper in the macOS menu bar while the application is running. Its icon shows a small chip of the most recently sampled color, so you can see your last pick without opening Suisai.

Click the icon to open the menu. From here, you can launch Quick Pick to Clipboard without switching applications, or use Collapse to Strip to reduce the active palette window to its compact form.

Recent colors

The Recent section keeps your last twelve sampled colors, with their HEX values and names.

Open a color’s submenu to copy it in your selected format or another supported format, add it to an open palette, or use it as a harmony or ramp seed.

You can also choose Add all colors to a new or an open palette to transfer the collected samples together rather than one at a time.

Choose Clear Recents to empty the list when you no longer need those samples.

Opening and quitting Suisai

The menu also provides Open Suisai to bring the application forward and Quit Suisai to close it.

The Suisai menu bar menu, showing recent colors and palette actions

Sampling into harmonies and ramps

The dropper in a harmony’s control row automatically selects the next seed.

When the harmony has no seed, the first pick sets First Seed (⇧⌘1). In Color Ramp, the next pick sets Last Seed (⇧⌘2). Once both are set, the dropper returns to selecting First Seed.

To create a ramp, click the dropper and choose your first color, then click again to choose the last. Suisai generates the colors between them.

A small vermilion marker identifies each seed, distinguishing the colors you selected from the steps Suisai calculated. The dropper’s help text tells you which seed will be picked next.

To replace a specific seed, hover over its swatch and click the dropper on that row. You can also use the Command and Option modifiers described above while the loupe is open.

In Palette mode, the dropper simply adds the sampled color to the palette.

Two sampled colors and the steps Suisai creates between them. Vermilion markers identify the original seeds

Enter a color value

You don’t have to use the dropper. Enter a HEX value directly, or edit individual color components using their numeric fields.

Component fields accept whole numbers appropriate to the selected color space, such as 8-bit RGB values, hue in degrees, or percentages.