The colors in any photo.
Drop a photo, get five hex codes. Click a swatch to copy. Slide diversity up if the palette looks samey. Download the swatches as a PNG — feed-ready, palette-card-shaped. Nothing uploads. For a real brand kit, grab a proper app.
Sorting the swatches…
Sorting the swatches…
Six places it makes a project click
- 01 for designers
A starting palette from a single reference photo
Brand work begins with a feel, not a swatch grid. Drop a photo of the place, mood, or object that captures the feel — a kraft-paper journal, a moss-covered wall, a ceramic bowl — and the tool gives you the hex codes you'd otherwise pick by eye for an hour.
- 02 for collages
Match washi tape and caption ink to a photo
If a journal spread is going to feel cohesive, the tape, ink, and paper should pull from the photo. Drop your hero photo, get the palette, then pick the closest matches in the Washi Tape and Add Text tools. The page will read as 'curated' instead of 'pasted'.
- 03 for mood boards
Five swatches per photo on a Pinterest board
Mood-board pinners get traction by adding mini-palettes underneath their pins — five color squares with hex codes. Run each board photo through this tool, download the palette PNG, paste under the photo. Looks researched, gets repinned.
- 04 for instagram
A palette caption for a feed post
Travel and design accounts caption their photos with the palette they pulled out. Three to five hex codes is enough — readers screenshot for inspiration. The diversity slider lets you avoid 'five shades of dust' on grayed-out shots.
- 05 for art
Constraint colors for a painting study
Limited-palette painting practice — Bob Ross style — wants 5 colors picked from a real reference. This tool does the picking. Print the palette PNG, mix to match, paint only with those mixes. The constraint sharpens the work.
- 06 for brand
Find the brand colors of a competitor in one drop
Drop a screenshot of a competitor's homepage and the dominant colors come out as hex codes. Useful for differentiation work — what NOT to look like — and for reference when their visual identity is well-resolved enough to learn from.
Frequently asked
Does the photo upload anywhere? +
No. Pixels are read into a small in-browser canvas, bucketed, and the dominant colors are computed in JavaScript. Your photo never touches our servers — we don't run an image pipeline at all.
How is the palette computed? +
We resize the photo to 220 pixels wide, scan every pixel, bucket each into one of 512 RGB bins (8 levels per channel), and rank bins by frequency. The diversity filter then walks down the list and keeps a color only if it's far enough away from already-picked ones.
Why are some palettes "five shades of beige"? +
Because the photo is mostly five shades of beige! When the image has low color variety, the diversity filter can starve. Dragging the diversity slider down to 0 returns the raw top-N most-common bins; up to 80+ forces visually distinct picks even when they're rarer in the photo.
Can I get more than 5 colors? +
Yes — drag the palette size slider up to 8. More than 8 starts losing visual coherence; if you need a 12-color palette, run the photo twice with different diversity settings and merge the results.
How do I copy a single hex code? +
Click any swatch. The hex code copies to your clipboard and the swatch label briefly says 'copied!'. To copy all five at once as a comma-separated list, hit the 'copy all' button in the toolbar.
What's the downloaded PNG for? +
A 1200×360 image with the swatches and hex codes baked in, ready to drop onto a Pinterest pin, Instagram caption, Notion page, or design document. The export uses paper-cream background to match your boards.
now what?
A few ways to put a palette to work
next →
Duotone Effect
Map the photo to two extracted palette colours.
Opennext →
Background Replace
Drop the subject onto a palette colour.
Opennext →
Add Text to Photo
Caption in a colour from the palette.
Opennext →
Pinterest Pin Maker
Use the palette in a pin band or backdrop.
Opennext →
Social Banner
Use the palette in a banner background.
Opennext →
Halftone Effect
Recolour the photo in palette tones.
OpenOther free tools nearby
Background Remover
Cut the background out of any photo in one click.
OpenBackground Replace
Drop your subject onto paper, gradient, or your own backdrop photo.
OpenText Behind Subject
Drop a word behind your subject, magazine-cover style.
OpenPhoto Filters
Nine presets, one photo — vintage to cinematic.
OpenFilm Grain
Tri-X, Kodak Gold, Lomo — pick a roll, see the grain.
OpenHalftone Effect
Comic dots, risograph red, punk-zine textures.
OpenPencil Sketch
Photo to graphite drawing in two clicks.
OpenDuotone Effect
Map photo to two colors — Spotify, sunset, riso.
OpenTilt-Shift Effect
Make real cities look like tabletop dioramas.
OpenLight Leak
Sunset, lomo red, golden hour — bleed light into corners.
OpenRGB Glitch
VHS bands, anaglyph 3D, CRT scanlines, chromatic aberration.
OpenASCII Art
Convert any photo to typed characters.
OpenPhoto Negative
Pure invert, cyanotype, blueprint, X-ray, darkroom, sepia negative.
OpenPhoto Mosaic
Photo as tiles with grout-color gaps.
OpenAdjust
Brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, blur — seven sliders.
OpenPolaroid Maker
Any photo, wrapped in paper with a handwritten caption.
OpenPhoto Strip Maker
Four photos, B&W mode, handwritten caption.
OpenDiptych Maker
Two photos, side-by-side or stacked.
OpenPhoto Mat & Border
Paper mat for prints, journals, framed walls.
OpenShape Crop
Circle, heart, star, arch — pick a cookie cutter.
OpenVintage Postcard
Greetings caption, faux stamp, postmark, paper texture.
OpenDrop Shadow
Float a photo over paper for portfolios and mockups.
OpenPinterest Pin Maker
Drop a photo, type a title, pick a layout. 1000×1500 native.
OpenSocial Banner
X, LinkedIn, or YouTube cover with title overlay.
OpenAdd Text to Photo
Handwritten captions, magazine headers, or a quick scribble.
OpenWashi Tape Overlay
Stick paper-mood tape onto any photo.
OpenVintage Date Stamp
LED red, Kodak yellow, camcorder amber.
OpenPhoto Watermark
Corner sign-off or full diagonal tile.
OpenSticker Overlay
Hearts, stars, flowers, smileys, paper tags, HELLO labels.
OpenCrop & Resize
Square for IG, 9:16 for stories, 2:3 for Pinterest.
OpenFlip & Rotate
Mirror a selfie, un-tilt a scan, turn a sideways shot upright.
OpenHEIC to JPG / PNG
iPhone photos that open on everything.
OpenBlur & Pixelate
Hide faces, plates, addresses — drag a patch over the spot.
OpenEXIF Stripper
Remove GPS, camera info, timestamps before posting.
OpenImage Compressor
Smaller JPG, WebP, or PNG — same look, less file.
OpenQR Code Generator
Print-ready QR for menus, invites, journals, vCards.
OpenColor Replace
Eyedropper a color in your photo, swap it for another.
Open Make proper brand kits
in a proper app.
Five hex codes is a starting point. When you want a real brand system — type pairs, spacing scale, secondary palette, illustration style — a real design app handles it cleanly.