Speaking of color--- I use a program that's a free download. It's called Tray Color by Proxy Systems.

When I open an image to, for instance, use it as the central theme for a website or blogskin, I use Tray Color to pick up coordinating colors from the image. So, for instance, a beach scene that is predominantly blue and beige may have some seaweed that's a gorgeous rusty brown and one or two spots of lilac in the skyline. I grab them, get the HEX code, and then pick up several shades above and below them to pull out certain colors. A good example is my home page, btw, which yanked a lot of purples out of an image that might have encouraged another user to go with greens and black.

The program is TINY and free. You can download it here: http://www.scepticstank.com/ (I can't seem to find the original site, but it's there for a quick download.)