Image Color Picker
Extract dominant colors and palettes from any image. Everything runs locally in your browser using the HTML canvas API — your images are never uploaded.
Upload an image to see its metadata and extracted colors.
Privacy — your image never leaves your device
Extracting colors from an image is done entirely in your browser using the HTML5 canvas API. When you drop a file, the browser reads it locally, samples its pixels, and produces a palette. No upload, no server round-trip, no storage anywhere except your own machine.
How dominant color extraction works
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Downscale the imageLarge images are drawn into a canvas at a reduced size so pixel sampling stays fast even for high-resolution photos.
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Sample pixelsA grid of pixels is read from the canvas. Fully transparent pixels are skipped so cutouts do not skew the palette toward black.
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Median-cut quantizationThe sampled colors are recursively split along their widest color channel until the target number of groups is reached. This is the classic median-cut algorithm.
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Average each groupEvery group is averaged into a single representative color, then sorted by lightness so the final palette reads from dark to light.
Practical uses
- Match a brand palette to a hero image or photograph.
- Extract colors from a screenshot to sample a competitor’s branding.
- Pull a palette from a mood board or interior design photo.
- Sample an exact pixel color from a UI screenshot to reproduce an interface.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the palette sometimes miss a prominent color?
Median-cut balances the number of pixels in each group, not visual importance. A very saturated accent that appears only in a small area may be averaged into a neighbouring group. Increasing the palette size or cropping the image to the area of interest usually fixes this.
Can I pick an exact pixel?
Yes. Click anywhere on the loaded image and the color of that exact pixel is copied to your clipboard as HEX. This works even on anti-aliased edges.
Does the tool handle transparent PNGs?
Yes. Fully transparent pixels are ignored, so the extracted palette reflects only the visible part of the image.
Is there a file size limit?
Files up to 20 MB are accepted. Very large photos are downscaled before processing to keep the browser responsive.