Color Palette Extractor
Pull dominant colors from images.
About Color Palette Extractor
Every photograph and illustration hides a small set of colors that define how it feels, and pulling that set out by eye is slow guesswork. This extractor samples the image, groups similar pixels, and reports the dominant colors as a row of swatches with their HEX codes. Under the hood a median cut algorithm splits the color space around the pixels that actually occur, so a sunset photo yields oranges and deep blues rather than a row of near-identical grays. Choose between 3 and 12 colors depending on whether you want the essence or the full range. Click any swatch and its code is on your clipboard, ready for a stylesheet, a mood board, or a slide theme. Everything is computed on a canvas in your browser, so unsent artwork stays private.
How to Use Color Palette Extractor
Drop in an image
Click the upload area or drag a picture onto it. PNG, JPG, and WebP all work, and a transparent background is handled by ignoring fully clear pixels.
Choose how many colors
Move the slider between 3 and 12. Small numbers give you the mood of the image, larger numbers surface secondary shades that are useful for accents and borders.
Copy the codes you need
Click a swatch to copy its HEX code in the standard six digit form. The tooltip shows the RGB form if you prefer decimal values for a design tool.
Apply the palette
Paste codes into your CSS variables, presentation theme, or illustration software. A thumbnail of the source stays above the palette for reference while you work.
Why Use Color Palette Extractor: Common Use Cases
Matching a website to a brand photo
Extract the palette from a hero photograph and reuse its tones for buttons, headings, and backgrounds so imagery and interface feel like one system.
Picking slide and poster themes
Base presentation colors on a key image instead of defaults, and the whole deck inherits a coherent look in seconds.
Sampling colors for illustration
Artists keep reference palettes from photos of the scene they are painting. Extract once, then keep the swatches beside the canvas.
Auditing an existing design
Run a screenshot through the extractor to see the true set of colors in a finished page, which is often larger than the design system intended. Comparing two design versions is faster with Diff Image.
Color Palette Extractor Specifications
| Input Formats | PNG, JPG, WebP, Any browser-readable image |
|---|---|
| Output Formats | HEX color codes, RGB values |
| File Size Limit | No strict limit (dependent on device memory) |
| Processing Engine | 100% Client-side (Runs locally in your browser) |
| Data Retention | Files never leave your device |
| Batch Processing | Single file processing |
Tips for Color Palette Extractor
Start with 6 colors. If two swatches look nearly identical, the image is dominated by one hue, and a smaller number tells the story better.
Extract from the largest version of an image you have. The sampler downsizes for speed, but a sharp source still gives cleaner groups than a blurry thumbnail.
Need the opposite direction, from code to color? Color Converter turns HEX into RGB, HSL, and back.
Palettes from photos often need one neutral. Add near-black or near-white manually when building a UI theme, since photos rarely contain true neutrals.
Contrast matters more than beauty for text. Check a candidate color against your background with a contrast checker before committing it to buttons.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are the dominant colors chosen?
The image is sampled, then a median cut algorithm repeatedly splits the color space along its widest axis until the requested number of boxes remain. Each box's average becomes a swatch, and swatches are ordered by how many pixels they cover.
Why does the palette differ from my image editor's picker?
A picker reports one pixel, which may be noise or compression artifact. This tool reports groups of pixels, so single odd pixels do not appear and genuinely repeated colors do.
Are transparent areas included?
No. Pixels with low opacity are skipped entirely, so a logo on a transparent background produces a palette of the artwork alone rather than a phantom background color.
What is the difference between HEX and RGB values?
They describe the same color in different notation. HEX packs the red, green, and blue amounts into one six-digit code like #FF8800, and the tooltip shows the same amounts as decimal RGB for tools that want them separately.
Can I extract from an SVG?
If your browser can display it, yes. The SVG is rendered to a canvas at its natural size first. Very simple SVGs might be easier to inspect as text, where each fill color is written out literally.
Is there a limit on image size?
Very large images are downscaled before sampling, which has no practical effect on the palette. The download-free, upload-free workflow means even huge photos stay on your machine.