I like to select a logo first and then model the skin after it. That automatically gives me a set of colors to work with so that all I have to do is figure out which order works best instead of having to choose every little hue from scratch.
There's the beginning of a method. Rather than intuition, eyeballing, in other words swimming in subjectivity, it is possible to generate pleasing schemes rationally, as a formula. I'm going to detail the process. It requires no great colour sense or finesse on the designer's part, yet yields results that are spot on.
Recipe:
1) Choose a seed image This graphic will not necessarily appear (in whole) in the finished composition. We use it as a starter, and reference. Sometimes a few images will be used where their colours have already been harmonized.
The seed should embody the topic. For example, a Star Trek forum wants Star Trek colours, textures, motifs. The major colours might be pulled from crew uniforms. A game forum might use a game screenshot as the seed, colours pulled from buildings, backgrounds, etc. The colours have been worked out by artists already; why reinvent the wheel? Why run counter to it?
Where no designer has gone before
, we also find great palettes. Often these are natural palettes. Natural palettes may be pulled from images of butterflies, mountain sunsets, bowls of stir-fried vegetables. Less natural but maybe appropriate palettes come from such images as slotcar collections, computer hardware, and so on.
The main thing is to start with a visually rich image embodying the forum subject.
2) Sample coloursCreate a new file just for slapping palette colours onto. Use the editor's eyedropper tool to select colours from the seed image, and paint chunks of these colours so they're easy to play with later.
This step can be accomplished even with Windows Paint. A dedicated eyedropper tool helps. Here's a free one:
catchcolor . From any point on screen, it copies HEX values which may then be pasted as text.
Sample a range of colours, even ones that likely won't be used. Sometimes the loveliest hues might just come off a trout's belly, or worse.
Try to get a shadow and highlight version of each hue as well, directly from the source. This is better than making them up later.
See if there are textures to be had. These can be made seamlessly repeating, and tiled as backgrounds. Avoid tiling pictures of things (e.g. dude standing on roof), rather, pick out just one element that by itself looks nearly two-dimensional (like the fabric of dude's jacket). Fine-grained textures add a lot of depth to a forum but otherwise work like colours.
Here's one way to make seamless tiles with Paint.
3) Play with coloursTry filling a large block with one colour, as background, and insetting other colours as foreground. Experiment. At this stage, we're beginning to get ideas about the overall scheme and maybe alternate skins.
The products of these exercises look "right" because the unadjusted colours are still exactly what the forum's about.
Get outside advice. I like to feed seeds into some of the online colour scheme generators mentioned earlier in this thread. My favorite generator is
this one. Try pasting a HEX value into it, and select "triad" for a perfectly rational output.
By now we should have a wide spectrum of colours, highlights and shades, to work with, all in harmony. And we didn't add one drop of guesswork to the palette.
4) Consolidate palettesNow, still working on the original palette image, consolidate colours into functional groups. These will be sets of colours that contrast well and end up constituting element groups within Proboards. The basic element group in Proboards is the cell, with its borders, background and background highlight, text colours, etc. We might want a few different cell schemes, skins, or special palettes reserved for icons, avatars, and so on.
Plain black and plain white are indispensable, and should be included in most palettes. They're great for fine lines and detail, and text of course. Also, grey (scroll bar and button grey) can't be replaced in every instance, so account for it.
5) Apply the palettesHere we finally paste those HEX codes into the new forum skin. We may also use daughter-palettes when building icons, banners, and so forth. The original seed image might become a banner or background, or not shown at all.
Much has already been said about how/where to apply colours, and, once we've got something to show, other members can offer criticism, rules of thumb, confirmation.
, we also find great palettes. Often these are natural palettes. Natural palettes may be pulled from images of butterflies, mountain sunsets, bowls of stir-fried vegetables. Less natural but maybe appropriate palettes come from such images as slotcar collections, computer hardware, and so on.
Please make sure you read the rules and guidelines of the boards, it will make your time here run much more smoothly and you wil be able to get the best support for your forum. and I would refrain from comments like "Who cares"...we all do, the PB is a community of good and hard working people. 
