Colour Palette From Image for CSS & HTML
First published in 2013, rewritten in 2026 so the advice holds today.
Getting colour values off a design file, a competitor's site or a client's logo shouldn't involve opening specialist software and hunting around with an eyedropper tool. It's a small job that eats time you don't have, especially if you're briefing a developer, checking brand consistency across a campaign, or building a style guide from scratch.
Our Colour Palette Generator does this in one step. Upload an image and it returns the palette, with HEX and RGB values ready to use.
Where this saves time
The usual manual route looks like this:
- Opening the design file in specialist software
- Using an eyedropper or colour picker
- Typing out RGB or HEX values by hand
- Risking a transcription error somewhere along the way
- Switching back and forth between applications to check you've got it right
Upload the image to the tool instead and you get the full palette straight away, ready to drop into your CSS or share with whoever needs it.
How it works
- Upload an image
- The tool analyses it and identifies the dominant and accent colours
- Colours are ranked by prominence
- HEX and RGB values are generated for each one
- You get a clean palette you can copy or download
No sign-up, no interface to learn. Upload, extract, done.
Practical uses for e-commerce and marketing teams
This isn't just a developer tool. Anyone responsible for how a brand looks across a website, social channels and print will find uses for it:
- Brand consistency: pull the exact palette from a client or brand logo so every landing page, banner and email matches
- Competitor research: extract colours from competitor sites to see what's becoming standard in your category before you decide whether to follow it or stand out from it
- Campaign assets: keep colours consistent across a campaign when different people are producing the social creative, the email templates and the site banners
- Print and digital alignment: check that the colours in a print ad or packaging design match what's live on the website
- Design inspiration: upload a photo you like and use the extracted palette as a starting point for a new design
One thing worth adding since this tool was first built: if you're setting colours for a website, it's also worth running your foreground and background combinations through a contrast checker against WCAG guidelines. A palette can look right and still fail on accessibility, particularly for body text on coloured backgrounds. That's a separate check, but it's a natural next step once you've got your HEX values from this tool.
Beyond web design
People outside web development use it too:
- Print designers checking colour consistency between digital and physical media
- Interior designers pulling palettes from inspiration photos
- Marketing teams keeping brand colours consistent across campaigns and channels
- Photographers analysing the colour composition of their own work
- Students learning colour theory through a practical example rather than a textbook diagram
Try it
The tool is free to use: ColorThief™.
Upload an image, get your palette, and move on to the next thing on your list. If you've found other uses for it, or there's a feature that would make it more useful for your workflow, let us know through our contact form.