How It Works

This tool extracts dominant colors by sampling pixels from your image and grouping similar shades together. It then ranks the groups by frequency and returns the most representative colors. The goal is to give you a palette that “feels” like the image: the main background tones, key accents, and any recurring mid-tones that define the overall look.

Steps

• 1) Upload an image (JPG, PNG, GIF, and WebP supported on most servers).
• 2) Choose palette size (for example 5, 8, or 12 colors) depending on how detailed you want the results.
• 3) Optional refinements like ignoring near‑white / near‑black pixels can help when you want the “real” accents instead of borders and backgrounds.
• 4) Generate and copy the palette as HEX, RGB, CSS variables, or JSON for use in your workflow.

Behind the scenes, the tool downscales the image for speed, then performs lightweight quantization to cluster colors. This is a practical approach for web tooling: fast, consistent, and easy to reproduce across uploads.

Key Features

Dominant color detection

The palette prioritizes the colors that occupy the most visual area in the image, so you get an accurate sense of the image’s core “color story.” This is ideal for brand extraction, UI themes, and creative direction boards.

HEX and RGB outputs

Every color is returned in HEX (for web design) and RGB (for imaging tools and conversions). This makes it easy to copy colors into Figma, Photoshop, CSS, Tailwind theme files, or design systems.

Copy-ready formats

One click copies a neat list you can paste into code or documentation. You can also download the palette as JSON to share with teammates, store in a repository, or import into internal tooling.

Works with common image formats

Most users can upload JPG or PNG images and get an instant palette. If your server supports additional formats like WebP, the tool will handle those too.

Privacy-friendly processing

The tool processes your uploaded image to generate colors and does not require external services. This is useful when you are working with internal mockups, unreleased branding, or client assets.

Use Cases

• Brand color discovery: Extract primary and secondary colors from a logo or brand banner.
• Website theming: Build a cohesive theme (background, surface, accent, text) from a hero image.
• UI design systems: Start a token set for buttons, links, alerts, and charts using real-world imagery.
• Social media templates: Match palette across posts by extracting colors from a campaign key visual.
• Presentation styling: Pick slide background and highlight colors from a company photo or product shot.
• Product photography: Find consistent accent colors for e-commerce layouts or category pages.
• Art & illustration: Study reference palettes from photos and paintings to guide your work.

In practice, color extraction is about speed and consistency. Instead of manually sampling with an eyedropper and ending up with dozens of tiny variations, this tool gives you a compact, curated set of representative colors you can actually use.

Optimization Tips

Use a clean source image

If your goal is to capture brand colors, use the highest-quality version of the logo or banner you have. Heavily compressed screenshots can introduce artifacts and small color shifts that slightly change the extracted palette.

Adjust palette size to match your goal

For quick theming, 5–8 colors usually works best: you get a background tone, a few mid-tones, and a couple of accents. For detailed analysis—like extracting colors from a complex illustration—use 10–12 colors to capture more nuance.

Remove borders and whitespace when needed

Large white margins, frames, or UI chrome can dominate the results. Cropping the image before uploading often produces a palette that better represents the subject. If you want only the “content” colors, keep the subject centered and minimize empty space.

FAQ