Image Color Palette Extractor

Upload an image and extract a small palette from its visible colors. Everything runs in your browser, so the image stays on your device.

Drop an image here, or click to browse

Supports JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, and BMP up to 20MB

Use the Palette For

Logo Colors

Pull HEX values from logos, ads, and reference boards.

Screenshot Palettes

Turn product screenshots and interface mockups into starter color sets.

Thumbnail Colors

Pull colors from photos for thumbnails, social graphics, and presentations.

How Palette Extraction Works

The tool samples pixels from your image, groups nearby colors into simplified RGB buckets, ranks the most frequent groups, and returns a compact palette. The result is approximate by design: nearby colors are merged so the output stays useful instead of listing thousands of nearly identical pixels.

Getting Better Palette Results

Use images with clear subject colors and limited heavy filters. Screenshots, logos, product photos, and interface mockups usually produce cleaner palettes than noisy photos with many tiny color variations.

Dominant Colors vs. Usable Palette Colors

The most frequent color in an image is not always the best UI color. A product photo may be mostly background, a screenshot may be mostly neutral surface, and a logo may include anti-aliased edge colors. Treat the extracted palette as a starting point, then assign practical roles.

Brand role

Choose the color that best represents the subject, not necessarily the most common pixel color. For logos, this is usually a saturated fill color rather than a shadow or edge blend.

Surface role

Pale or neutral extracted colors work well for page backgrounds, cards, and section bands, but usually need darker companion text colors.

Accent role

Bright colors from photos or illustrations are often better as accents, badges, and highlights than as large backgrounds or body text.

Palette Review Checklist

Remove near-duplicate colors before turning the result into design tokens.
Check whether the lightest color can support readable text or should stay a background only.
Check whether the darkest color is neutral enough for text, navigation, or chart labels.
Use the Color Contrast Checker before using any extracted color for text or controls.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are my images uploaded? v

No. Image reading and palette extraction happen locally in your browser.

How many colors does it extract? v

The extractor returns up to 8 dominant colors, which is usually enough for a practical palette.

Why are the extracted colors approximate? v

Images often contain thousands of similar pixels. The extractor groups nearby RGB values so the palette shows useful dominant colors instead of tiny variations.

Can I copy the palette? v

Yes. Copy individual HEX values or copy the full palette as a comma-separated list.

Can I export palette colors for CSS? v

Yes. After extracting a palette, copy CSS custom properties that you can paste into a stylesheet or design token file.

Can I download the palette data? v

Yes. Use the JSON export to download HEX and RGB values for the extracted colors.

Using This Tool Reliably

Image checks

Use a clear source image, sample the intended area, and compare nearby pixels or extracted colors before saving values for CSS, design tokens, or brand documentation.

Sampling logic

The browser reads image color data locally and displays sampled or extracted values from the uploaded file without needing a server-side color lookup.

Example workflow

Upload a screenshot, logo, or photo, pick or extract the relevant colors, then convert and contrast-check any values that will be used for text or controls.

Common mistakes

Watch for compressed images, transparent pixels, shadows, anti-aliased edges, and sampled colors reused out of context without checking contrast.

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