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I love using Canva for making pins for Pinterest – and I especially love that you can use Canva for free!
Overall, I find it to be the simplest and fastest way to make pins.
Still, sometimes I miss a few of the features I can use with, say, Adobe Photoshop.
One of those features is using a color picker so that I can match a text or background color to another color on my pin.
For example, let’s say I have a blog entry about campfires, and my blog entry has a great photo of a campfire.
When I make my pin, I can use the photo and then place some text over it.
I can use the color picker to make the color of the text match the color of the fire.
Using this trick can really make your pins pop!
Unfortunately, Canva doesn’t come with a color picker.
Luckily, you can get around this by using the ColorZilla browser extension!
The ColorZilla Color Picker Browser Extension
ColorZilla is a browser extension on Chrome that is also available on Firefox. (There are other browser extensions, too, but this is the one I prefer.)
As is the case with many browser extensions, you can download the browser extension for free. Then, whenever you use that browser, you’ll be able to use the tool.
While ColorZilla has a number of features, I only use the Page Color Picker.
I can use the extension by clicking on the ColorZilla icon (it looks like an eyedropper) located at the top of my browser (there’s a red arrow pointing it in the above screenshot). A rectangle will appear at the top of the page like in the screenshot. You can then move your cursor anywhere on the page, and when you click the cursor, it will copy the color code number to your clipboard.
What’s the color code? The color code is a combination of 6 letters and/or numbers. In the above screenshot, the color code for the selected pink color is FF709D. Sometimes you’ll see a hashtag before the code but you don’t need to worry about that (you won’t need a hashtag in Canva). Each color has its own color code.
So, once I’ve clicked on the color and its color code has been saved to my clipboard, I can then use that color code in Canva.
Changing Colors in Canva Using Color Codes
If you want to change a color in Canva (for example, text color), you can click on the little color square. The square is either a solid color (if you’re already using a color) or a rainbow mix of colors (like in the following screenshot).
If you then click on the little plus sign, you can drag the cursor anywhere on the color wheel or click anywhere on the color wheel.
You can also use the Color code # box – and that’s exactly what we can use!
See where it says “ffffff”? We can just paste our color code into the box.
So, the whole thing is really just a matter of two steps:
1. Use ColorZilla to pick a color (and get the color code)
2. Paste the color code in Canva
Using ColorZilla can open up more options for the colors you use when making your pins, even if you’re not trying to match any colors in your photos.
For example, let’s say you’re making a pin for a blog entry about a particular university. You can use the ColorZilla extension to get the color codes from the school colors on the university’s website so that your pin matches the university! This is a great way to make your pins fit a theme and be more noticeable/recognizable.
(Note that you can click on the color picker icon and then click on “Picked Color History” to see the codes for multiple colors – but I usually just pick a color, paste it into Canva, pick another color, paste it into Canva and so on.)
You can also use ColorZilla to match the color of a company’s logo, the colors of a country’s flag… the possibilities are endless!
Interested in upping your Pinterest game even more? Make sure you’re using Tailwind to schedule your pins, share pins with fellow Tailwind users via Tribes & more!
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