What a colour palette is for
A palette is the short list of colours a brand uses everywhere: on the website, the Instagram feed, the logo, the packaging and the link in bio. Keeping to a few colours is what makes things look designed rather than put together, and it makes every new post or page faster to make, because the choices are already made.
Most brands need three to five colours: a light one for backgrounds, a dark one for text, a main colour that is recognisably theirs, and one or two accents for buttons and highlights. The generator always spreads its colours from dark to light for that reason.
Colour harmonies, simply
Colour harmonies are combinations that work because of where the colours sit on the colour wheel. Analogous colours are neighbours, like orange, coral and pink: calm and natural. Monochrome is one hue in several shades: simple and elegant. Complementary colours face each other, like blue and orange: strong contrast that makes buttons pop. Split complementary and triadic mix three hues for livelier palettes that still feel balanced.
Lock a colour you already have — your logo's, say — and every harmony is built around it.
Getting a palette from a photo
Upload a photo and the tool finds its main colours by grouping similar pixels and ranking the groups by how much of the picture they cover. It works well with a photo of your products, your shop, a place that inspires you or your best-performing post. The picture is read by your browser and never uploaded anywhere.
Photos often give muted colours. If you want more life, lock the ones you love and generate the rest, or nudge a colour with its picker.
HEX, RGB and HSL
They are three ways of writing the same colour. HEX (#0f766e) is what most design apps, website builders and Canva ask for. RGB (15, 118, 110) gives the amounts of red, green and blue. HSL (175°, 77%, 26%) describes the hue, how saturated it is and how light — handy for making a lighter or darker shade of a colour by changing only the last number. Tap any code to copy it.
Readable colours
A beautiful palette can still be hard to read. For each colour, the tool shows the contrast of black and white text on it; a tick means it meets 4.5:1, the accessibility guideline for normal text. Put body text on your lightest or darkest colour, and keep the vivid ones for buttons, icons and headings.
Private by design
Everything runs in your browser. Your palettes and photos are never sent anywhere, and you can use the colours for anything, including client and commercial work.