Left to our own devices, the color combinations we come up with typically end up looking like one of Uncle Jimmy's circa-1985 Hawaiian Shirts of Doom.

In other words, ghastly.

But even we can make sensible, congruent, appealing color sets with ColorSchemer Studio 2. It's a professional color-matching application that helps us build beautiful color schemes with minimum effort.

We use ColorSchemer Studio 2 to explore color with a dynamic visual color wheel, we use it to actually see color harmony relationships, to mix colors, to create attractive gradient blends, and even to analyze contrast and readability!

The brand new version 2 of ColorSchemer Studio includes a host of new features. You can access more than a million pre-made color schemes from the COLOURlovers.com Community directly from the application. Using the Variations Palette you can find a similar or related color to a starting base color. ColorSchemer Studio 2 also includes color-managed environments that allow you to work with RGB and CMYK colors more accurately and efficiently.

More Version 2 Features:

• Color Management/Profiles: Work with color more accurately and efficiently with built-in color management and ICC color profile support. Use specific color profiles to ensure your color-critical work comes out right the first time, whether it's for the web or print.
• CMYK Color Support: Work with CMYK colors and profiles for complete control over color in your print projects.
• GalleryBrowser: Connect to the COLOURlovers community to browse, search, and download over a million user-created color palettes without ever leaving the program.
• LiveSchemes: Create and save LiveSchemes - custom color relationships that you define - to instantly turn any starting color into a ready-to-use color scheme.
• Variations: Use the new Variations palette to find colors that are similar or related to any starting base color.
• QuickPreview Layout Templates: Pick from among a number of QuickPreview layout styles to preview your colors in a variety of different settings, including website, blog, print and pattern layouts.
• Color Libraries: Select colors from pre-defined color libraries, including HTML named colors and more.
• Groups in Favorites: Create Color Groups in the Favorite Colors list to group sets of related colors together within a single scheme.

Now you can create custom LiveScheme formulas based on color theory, or your own imagination. You can even reverse-engineer and rotate existing color schemes with a simple drag & drop.