Free Image Color Palette Extractor

An image's colors as hex codes.

Click to upload, drag & drop, or paste from clipboard

JPG, PNG or WebP

How to use the Image Color Palette Extractor, step by step

Real screenshots of the current tool, using sample inputs. Long results are shown as a preview.

1
Add your input
Paste or type into the field Image Color Palette Extractor works from.
2
A page URL in place
With a page URL entered, Image Color Palette Extractor is ready to run.
3
Review the result
Select Get palette to run the tool. This screenshot shows the result returned for the sample input.

What the Color Palette Extractor does

Designers regularly start from a reference image, a hero photo, a mood board, a competitor screenshot, and need to translate it into a usable color palette. Manual eyedropper sampling takes 5-10 minutes; this tool does it in 2 seconds and gives you 5 hex codes ranked by dominance.

Behind the scenes the algorithm samples ~1,800 pixel points from the image, clusters them by color similarity, and returns the centroids of the largest clusters. The result is the 5 colors that visually dominate the image, perfect as a launch pad for branding, web design, marketing campaigns, or print work. Refine in your design tool of choice; treat the extraction as inspiration.

How to extract a palette

Five steps from image to deployed colors.

Pick URL or Upload

Paste an image URL, or click the Upload tab to use a file from your device.

Click Get Palette

The tool samples pixel colors from the image and clusters them into 5 dominant hex codes.

Review the swatches

See the 5 colors side by side, with hex codes and a preview of the source image.

Click any swatch to copy

One-click copy of the hex code. Use directly in CSS, Figma, or any design tool.

Refine in your design tool

For final use, paste into Figma or Coolors and tweak hue/saturation. Treat extraction as inspiration.

When designers use it

Six common workflows where the extractor pays for itself.

Brand identity from a mood board image

Designer collected reference images for a new brand. Run the chosen mood board image through the extractor; the dominant 5 colors become the starting palette for logo, web, and print design. Refine in Figma; lock the system.

Web design theme from a hero photo

Your homepage features a striking sunset photo. Extract its palette; use color #1 as background, #2 as primary, #3 as accent. The site visually echoes the hero image, creating cohesion that visitors notice without articulating.

Color theming for editorial design

You design a 30-page magazine; each article has a feature photo. Extract a palette from each photo; use article-specific colors for callouts, pull quotes, and section headers. Each spread feels coordinated.

Product photo retouching reference

You retouch product photos and need consistent color grading. Extract the palette from your hero approved photo; apply matching color balance to other product shots in Lightroom for visual consistency.

Marketing asset color matching

Campaign hero image is locked. Now you need email banners, social ads, and landing page assets that all feel cohesive. Extract the campaign image palette; build everything else with those 5 hex codes.

Logo color extraction from competitor research

You are positioning a brand against competitors. Extract palettes from each competitor logo to identify the dominant colors of your category. Pick a strategically different palette to stand out.

Platform-specific setup guides

How to use the extracted palette in the design tools and frameworks most teams ship from.

Figma

Extract palette here, copy each hex code.
In Figma, click the color picker on a fill, paste the hex into the hex field. Save as a Style for re-use across the file.
For full design system: build a Color Tokens page with each extracted color as a Style and assign roles (primary, secondary, accent, etc.).

Tailwind CSS

Extract palette, copy hex codes.
In tailwind.config.js, extend theme.colors with named tokens: brand-primary: "#623ce7", brand-accent: "#3d1d9e", etc.
Use across components as bg-brand-primary, text-brand-accent. The extracted palette becomes a typed palette in your codebase.

WordPress / Webflow / Shopify themes

Extract palette, paste hex codes into theme color settings (each platform has a Theme Customizer).
Most modern themes have 4-6 color slots: Primary, Secondary, Accent, Background, Text. Map your extracted palette to these.
Save and publish; verify visual consistency across templates.

Adobe Color / Coolors

Extract palette here as a starting point.
Paste each hex into Adobe Color or Coolors to refine: adjust hue/saturation, generate complementary or analogous variants, lock the final palette.
Export the refined palette in your preferred format (ASE, CSS, JSON).

Print design (Illustrator, InDesign)

Extract palette here for screen reference.
Convert each hex to CMYK using your preferred conversion tool (Adobe Color does this). Hex is RGB; print uses CMYK and the conversion is approximate.
For brand-critical print colors, use Pantone references; the extracted palette is the starting point, not final.

Grigora vs. other extractors

A side-by-side of the alternatives.

Capability	Grigora	Adobe Color	Coolors	Free generators	Manual
Free + unlimited extractions	Yes	Limited free	Free trial	Free, ad-supported	Manual eyedropper
URL or file upload	Both	URL only	Both	URL only	Manual
Hex output	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Manual
5 dominant colors	Yes	Yes	5-10	5	Manual
One-click copy per swatch	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial	Manual
Source image preview	Yes	No	Yes	No	N/A
No signup	Yes	Account required	Account required	Yes	Yes
Extracts in <5 seconds	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Manual

Common errors and how to fix them

Eight issues users hit when extracting palettes from images.

URL fetch fails with "Failed to fetch image"

Cause: CDN blocks cross-origin requests, or the URL requires authentication.

Fix: Save the image to your device, then use the Upload tab. Or copy the image URL from a source that allows hot-linking (most public CDNs like Unsplash do).

Output palette looks washed out or muddy

Cause: Source image has heavy compression, low resolution, or muted overall tones.

Fix: Use a higher-resolution version of the image. The algorithm samples pixel colors directly, quality in, quality out.

Two colors in the palette look almost identical

Cause: Image has many similar shades clustering close together.

Fix: For palette work, manually combine the similar colors and find a fresh accent color elsewhere. Or run a different reference image with more color variety.

Upload fails with "invalid file type"

Cause: File is HEIC (iPhone), AVIF on unsupported browser, or has wrong extension.

Fix: Convert to JPEG or PNG with any free converter. Confirm the file extension matches the actual format (sometimes Photoshop saves with wrong extension).

Returned hex codes feel "off" for branding

Cause: Algorithm extracts dominant pixel clusters, which may not match what feels brand-correct.

Fix: Treat output as a starting point. Tweak hue/saturation in a design tool (Figma, Adobe Color, Coolors) to refine into systematic brand colors. Extraction is inspiration, not final.

Same image gives different palettes across runs

Cause: Algorithm involves randomized sampling for speed; results vary slightly.

Fix: Run 2-3 times and average the results, or pick the run that best matches your visual sense. Differences are usually minor (10-20 hex points).

Palette includes a single color that does not appear in the image

Cause: Edge effects from algorithm or noisy image regions.

Fix: Drop the outlier; it is rarely useful for design. Re-run for a cleaner palette, or pick the 4 good colors and discard the fifth.

Tool times out on a very large image

Cause: Image over 10MB triggers slower processing.

Fix: Resize or compress the image first (use our Image Compressor). Palettes are extracted from sampled pixels, so a 1MB version gives identical results to the 10MB original.

Original data from our 2026 palette extraction usage

What we observed across 8,000 extractions through the tool.

1.4 sec

Average extraction time per image (sub-1MB)

Upload (61%)

Most common input mode across 8,000 sessions

~1,800

Average pixel sample count per image

4 min

Median time saved vs. manual eyedropper sampling

Frequently asked questions

Twelve answers covering what designers ask us about palette extraction.

The tool samples pixel colors from the image at hundreds of points, clusters similar colors using k-means or median-cut algorithms, and returns the centroids of the largest clusters. Result: the 5 colors that account for the most visual area in the image, ranked by dominance. Photos with strong color variation give the cleanest palettes.

Hex (#623ce7) is the most universal format for web design and CSS, it is shorter than RGB and recognized everywhere from Figma to Tailwind. Hex converts trivially to RGB (split into R, G, B pairs) or HSL (with any color picker). For design tools that prefer RGB, the conversion takes seconds.

Five, the dominant 5 colors. This is the sweet spot for design palettes: enough variety for a full UI (background, primary, secondary, accent, text), few enough to maintain cohesion. Most successful brands use 5-7 core colors. If you need more variety, run multiple images and combine palettes.

JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF (first frame) are supported. AVIF works in most browsers. SVG is supported but the algorithm rasterizes the SVG first, for vector source files with explicit color values, copy the colors from the SVG source directly for better accuracy.

Photos with intentional color composition (sunset, food, fashion shoot) give clean palettes. Stock photos with muted backgrounds give muted palettes. Abstract art and logos with limited color sets often give crisp palettes that match the source. Highly noisy images (low-res, heavy compression) produce less reliable results.

Not automatically, the extractor pulls dominant colors regardless of contrast suitability. After getting the palette, run combinations through a WCAG contrast checker to verify text legibility. For UI design, you may need to adjust extracted colors slightly to hit the 4.5:1 contrast ratio for body text.

For inspiration, yes. For final brand colors, treat the output as a starting point. The dominant colors of an inspiration image are a launch pad; refine in a design tool to make sure each color has the right hue, saturation, and lightness for systematic UI use. Pure extraction often gives muddier colors than a designer would pick.

Briefly. The image is sent to our backend, palette extracted, then immediately discarded. We do not retain images, do not log file content, and do not associate the extracted palette with the source image after the request completes.

Coolors generates novel palettes from scratch using color theory; this tool extracts existing colors from an image. Use Coolors when you want fresh inspiration. Use this tool when you have a reference image (logo, photo, mood board) and want to match. Many designers use both: extract a base palette here, refine and lock variants in Coolors.

By dominance, the most-frequent color in the image is first. The order is consistent across runs of the same image, so you can rely on the first color being the largest visual element (often background or sky for outdoor photos, skin tone for portraits, etc.).

No. URL mode fetches the public version of the image. For protected images, save them to your device and use the Upload tab. Uploaded files are processed without any authentication context.

Approximately. Color extraction is an approximation; the algorithm picks representative colors from clusters of similar pixels, not the exact pixel values. For a 100% pixel-accurate match, use a color picker tool on the actual file. For design palette extraction, the approximation is usually what you want.

Related free tools

Other utilities that pair well with the Color Palette Extractor.

Pull a palette from any image

URL or upload, 5 hex codes, copy with one click. Free, unlimited, no signup.

Try the Palette Extractor