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Image Color Palette Extractor — Get Dominant Colors (Local)

Extract the dominant colors from any image using k-means clustering. Copy each swatch as HEX, RGB, or HSL — plus ready-to-paste Tailwind config and CSS custom properties.

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Drop an image here, or

Colors are extracted from a downscaled copy of the image, entirely in your browser.

Colors to extract

Drop an image to extract 3-12 dominant colors via k-means clustering. Copy each swatch, or paste the auto-generated Tailwind config / CSS custom properties into your design system.

What is Image Color Palette?

Design systems often start with 'pick colors from this reference image'. Instead of eyeballing swatches, this tool downscales the image, samples pixels, and runs k-means clustering to find the true dominant colors — weighted by how much of the image each color covers. You get the swatches with HEX/RGB/HSL, plus ready-to-paste Tailwind config and CSS custom properties.

How to extract a color palette from an image

  1. 1Drop an image onto the page.
  2. 2Pick how many colors to extract (3-12).
  3. 3Click any swatch to copy its HEX; or grab the Tailwind / CSS snippets at the bottom.

Use Cases

Design system seeding

Extract brand colors from a hero photo or existing marketing asset.

Match a photo's mood

Pull the palette from an inspiring photo and use it as your site's theme.

Cover art analysis

Understand the dominant colors of an album cover, movie poster, or book jacket for a recommendation UI.

Tips & Best Practices

  • 6 is a good default — enough variety, still visually manageable.
  • The tool ignores fully transparent pixels but includes semi-transparent ones (α ≥ 50%).
  • For designer-friendly palettes, use 4-6 colors. For data-visualization palettes, 8-12 is more useful.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does it pick the colors?

The tool samples a downscaled version of your image (up to about 4,000 pixels), then runs k-means clustering with k-means++ initialization for the number of colors you asked for. Bigger clusters — dominant colors — show first.

Can I use these colors in my design system?

Yes. Below the swatches you get ready-to-paste Tailwind config and CSS custom properties (brand1..brandN), so you can drop them directly into your theme.

Is my image uploaded?

No. All sampling and clustering happens in your browser.

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