Pika

Pika (pronounced pi·kuh, like picker) is an easy to use, open-source, native colour picker for macOS. Pika makes it easy to quickly find colours onscreen, in the format you need, so you can get on with being a speedy, successful designer.

Download

Download the latest version of the app at: superhighfives.com/pika

Or install with Homebrew:

brew install --cask pika

Features

• Pick colours from anywhere on screen, with the macOS sampler or Pika's Pro picker and its live loupe
• Check contrast between a foreground and background with WCAG 2 or APCA
• Hex, RGB, HSB, HSL, LAB, OpenGL and OKLCH formats, in sRGB or Display P3
• Click, type, scrub or step any colour value
• Colour names, history, undo and redo
• Global shortcuts and a pika:// URL scheme for automation

Learn More

Learn more about the motivations behind the project, and the product vision.

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Requirements

OS

• macOS Sonoma (Version 14) and newer

Basics

Colour contrast is the difference in lightness between text and whatever’s behind it. With too little, words blur into their background. That’s a real problem for people with low vision or colour blindness, and it catches everyone else too, like reading a phone in the sun or a laptop turned down low.

Accessibility guidelines set minimum contrast levels so text stays readable for as many people as possible. WCAG 2 is the standard most guidelines and laws point to, and APCA is a newer method that also weighs up font size and weight. Checking early is much easier than reworking a design later.

That’s where Pika comes in. Pick a foreground and background from anywhere on your screen, whether it’s a design file, a website or a screenshot, and Pika shows the contrast straight away, alongside the colours in the format you need, ready to copy.

• Foreground and background: The foreground is text or an icon; the background is the surface behind it. Press X to swap them.
• Why check contrast: Low-contrast text is hard to read, especially with low vision, colour blindness or glare.
• WCAG and APCA: WCAG 2 gives a ratio (AA needs 4.5:1 for text). APCA gives an Lc value that accounts for size and weight, but isn’t a standard yet.
• Ways to pick a colour: Basic uses the macOS sampler. Pro adds a live loupe and needs Screen Recording. ⌘ S opens the macOS colour panel.
• Editing values: Click a value to type, drag or two-finger scroll to scrub, and press ↑ or ↓ to step. ⌘ Z undoes.
• Colour spaces: sRGB matches CSS, Figma and most design tools, and is the default. Display P3 covers the more vivid colours of recent Macs. Contrast always uses sRGB.

Learn more about WCAG contrast and APCA.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Most shortcuts need Pika in front. Show/hide Pika and Pick pair (⌥ ⌘ D) work from any app; set them in Settings → Global Shortcut.

Group	Shortcut	Action
Pick	⌘ D	Pick foreground
Pick	⌘ ⇧ D	Pick background
Pick	⌥ ⌘ D	Pick foreground and background
Copy	⌘ C	Copy foreground
Copy	⌘ ⇧ C	Copy background
System picker	⌘ S	Use for foreground
System picker	⌘ ⇧ S	Use for background
Change format	⌘ 1	Format Hex
Change format	⌘ 2	Format RGB
Change format	⌘ 3	Format HSB
Change format	⌘ 4	Format HSL
Change format	⌘ 5	Format LAB
Change format	⌘ 6	Format OpenGL
Change format	⌘ 7	Format OKLCH
Actions	X	Swap colors
Actions	H	Toggle history
Actions	C	Toggle compliance
Actions	P	Toggle colour preview
Actions	⌘ Z	Undo last pick
Actions	⌘ ⇧ Z	Redo last pick
Actions	⌘ ,	Preferences
Actions	⌘ Q	Quit Pika

URL Triggers

You can also trigger Pika using the pika:// URL scheme.

When picking or copying, you can append a format to the URL — <format> is one of hex, rgb, hsb, hsl, lab, opengl, or oklch. For example, pika://pick/foreground/hex.

Group	URL	Action
Pick	pika://pick/foreground	Pick foreground
Pick	pika://pick/background	Pick background
Pick	pika://pick/contrast	Pick foreground and background
Pick	pika://pick/foreground/<format>	Pick foreground in a specific format
Pick	pika://pick/background/<format>	Pick background in a specific format
System picker	pika://system/foreground	Use for foreground
System picker	pika://system/background	Use for background
Copy	pika://copy/foreground	Copy foreground
Copy	pika://copy/background	Copy background
Copy	pika://copy/foreground/<format>	Copy foreground in a specific format
Copy	pika://copy/background/<format>	Copy background in a specific format
Copy	pika://copy/text	Copy all colours as text
Copy	pika://copy/json	Copy all colours as JSON
Change format	pika://format/hex	Format Hex
Change format	pika://format/rgb	Format RGB
Change format	pika://format/hsb	Format HSB
Change format	pika://format/hsl	Format HSL
Change format	pika://format/lab	Format LAB
Change format	pika://format/opengl	Format OpenGL
Change format	pika://format/oklch	Format OKLCH
Actions	pika://swap

Development

• Xcode
• Swift Package Manager
• Mint

Getting Started with Contributing

Make sure you have mint installed, and bootstrap the toolchain dependencies:

brew install mint
mint bootstrap

Open Pika.xcodeproj and to run the project. Sparkle requires that you have a team and signing profile set for the project, or it will crash with a dyld / signal SIGABRT error.

If you run into any problems, please detail them in an issue.

Contributions

Any and all contributions are welcomed. Check for open issues, look through the project roadmap, help translating the app and submit a PR.

Dependencies and Thanks

• Sparkle software update framework
• Defaults
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Launch At Login
• NSWindow+Fade
• Sweetercolor colour extension library for Swift (slightly tweaked for NSColor, rather than UIColor)
• Color names
• Metal shader code in part thanks to Smiley

And a huge thank you to Stormnoid for the incredible 2D vector field visualisation on Shadertoy.