Free watercolor palette extractor for artists. Upload any photo and get matching watercolor pigment names, pigment codes, and alternative suggestions. Includes a coloring-book view and palette download.
Every painter has stood in front of a reference photo wondering which pigments to reach for. The colors on a screen look nothing like the paints in your palette, and translating what you see into actual watercolor pigments requires experience that takes years to develop.
This tool does the translation for you. It analyses your photo, extracts the most important colors, and matches each one to the closest watercolor pigment by name and pigment code. You also get an alternative suggestion for each color – useful if you do not own that specific pigment but have something similar on your palette.
[Subheading] See Your Palette Before You Paint
The coloring-book view posterizes your photo into the exact colors of your extracted palette, with edge lines drawn over the top. This shows you how the image would look painted in those colors, helping you judge whether the palette works before you mix a single drop of paint. You can download both the palette card and the coloring-book image to use as references at your desk.
Extracts the true dominant colors from your photo without modification. What you see in the image is what you get in the palette. The best starting point for realistic and observational painting.
Boosts saturation and increases contrast between light and dark values. The colors become more intense and emotional, inspired by the Expressionist tradition of painting feeling rather than fact. Ideal for bold, energetic work where accuracy is less important than impact.
Softens and slightly lightens the extracted colors, shifting the palette toward the luminous, hazy quality associated with Impressionist painting. Works particularly well with landscapes, water, and scenes with soft natural light.
Shifts the entire palette toward warm ochres, siennas, and umbers. Colors are desaturated and grounded. Ideal for portraits, architectural subjects, and any painting where you want a warm, traditional feel reminiscent of old masters.
Strips away most saturation and compresses the palette into a narrow tonal range. The result is a near-monochromatic set of closely related values. Excellent for value studies, fog and atmosphere, and any composition where quiet harmony matters more than color contrast.
Most color tools give you a hex code and leave you to figure out the rest. This tool goes further – each extracted color is matched to the closest real watercolor pigment by name and international pigment code, such as PB29 for French Ultramarine or PBr7 for Burnt Sienna. These codes are the same ones printed on your paint tubes, making it straightforward to identify exactly which paint to use.
Not every artist owns the same paints. For each color in your palette, the tool also suggests an alternative pigment that is close in hue and behavior. If you do not have French Ultramarine, you might have Cobalt Blue. If you are missing Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna may serve the same purpose. The alternative is shown with its own color swatch so you can judge the difference at a glance.
Your photo is posterized – simplified into flat areas of color using only the pigments in your extracted palette. Black edge lines are drawn over the top using edge detection, creating an image that looks like an illustrated painting study. Each colored region corresponds directly to one of your palette colors, so you can see at a glance which pigment goes where. Download the coloring-book image and keep it beside your paper as a painting guide.
Click the upload area or drag and drop any JPG, PNG, or WebP image. Works with photographs, digital sketches, paintings, and any visual reference you plan to paint from.
Select the style that matches your artistic intention. Start with Natural if you want accurate colors, or try Expressionist and Earth Tones to explore how the same image might feel in a different mood.
Use the slider to choose between four and ten colors. Fewer colors produce a simpler, bolder palette suited to loose painting. More colors give you a nuanced palette for detailed, complex work. Six is a good starting point for most subjects.
Click the Extract Palette button. The tool analyses your photo, applies your chosen style, and displays the coloring-book view alongside your original image. Each color swatch shows the dominant pigment name, pigment code, hex value, and alternative suggestion.
Download the palette card as a PNG to print or keep open on a second screen. Download the coloring-book image as a painting guide. Take both to your desk and start mixing.
This tool is designed for watercolor artists who work from photographic reference and want a faster, more informed way to build their palette before starting a painting.
It is particularly useful for landscape painters who want to simplify a complex scene into a limited palette, for portrait painters choosing harmonious skin tones and background colors, for artists building a restricted palette for a series of related works, and for beginners who are still learning which pigments correspond to the colors they see in real life.
If you have ever finished a painting and felt the colors were slightly off even though you mixed carefully – this tool helps you identify the right starting pigments before you begin.
The Watercolor Palette Extractor is completely free and part of Konstlabbet, a growing collection of free tools for artists at akvarellskiss.se. No account needed, no watermarks, no limitations. Your photo never leaves your device – all color analysis happens entirely in your browser.