Color palette tools
Generating, extracting, and matching color palettes — from an idea, a photo, or a real object
A color palette tool takes some starting point — a single seed color, an existing photo, a physical object — and turns it into a coordinated set of colors you can actually use, for a design, a room, or a brand. What differs between tools is the starting point and what "coordinated" means for the job at hand.
Most palette generators lean on classical color-theory schemes: complementary (colors opposite each other on the color wheel, for high contrast), analogous (neighboring hues, for a cohesive feel), triadic (three colors evenly spaced around the wheel), split-complementary, and tetradic/square schemes. Under the hood, colors get described in a few interchangeable formats — HEX (the six-digit code used everywhere in web and app design), RGB (red-green-blue values, how screens actually render color), and HSL (hue-saturation-lightness, usually the easiest for a person to reason about when they want something "a bit darker" or "more saturated").
The six apps here split into a few real use cases rather than being six versions of the same thing. Palettine and Palettro both start from a seed color and generate palettes across the classic harmony modes, exporting to code-ready formats (CSS, Tailwind, Swift Color, JSON) — built for someone who needs a coordinated set fast and wants to drop it straight into a project. TintKit is about capturing colors you already see rather than generating new ones — tap any pixel in a photo, or sample live through the camera, to grab an exact code. Chromaloom goes a step further on the extraction side: it pulls a full palette (not just one color) out of an existing photo, with multiple extraction variations and mood-board organization, for building a look from real reference images. Chrovis leans into the theory and exploration side — live format conversion, harmony schemes, and a bundled contrast checker for people who want to understand the color, not just grab it. TintScout is the odd one out in the best way: instead of working from a photo or a code, it points your camera at a real wall, fabric, or object and matches it to the closest actual paint swatch, using perceptual color distance rather than a naive RGB comparison — built for decorating decisions, not design software.
The app
Chrovis
Chrovis is the fastest way to explore color theory on iPhone. Pick any color, instantly see every classic harmony scheme — complementary, an…
Palettine
Palettine is the fastest, cleanest offline color palette generator — no account, no cloud, no waiting. Pick any seed color with the color w…
Palettro
Palettro generates harmonious color palettes the moment you move a slider — no account, no internet, no friction. Pick any seed color with …
TintKit
TintKit is the fastest way to capture any color and get its exact code — no account, no internet, no clutter. Point at a surface, import a …
TintScout
TintScout finds the closest paint color match for whatever you're looking at. Point your camera at a wall, a fabric, anything with color, an…
Chromaloom
Point your camera at anything and Chromaloom instantly extracts a five-color palette — the fastest way for designers, stylists, and makers t…
How it compares to other tools
Frequently asked questions
What are the main color harmony schemes used in palette generators?
Complementary pairs colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel for maximum contrast. Analogous uses neighboring hues for a cohesive, low-contrast feel. Triadic picks three colors evenly spaced around the wheel for a balanced but vibrant combination. Split-complementary softens a complementary pair by using the two colors next to the opposite hue instead of the exact opposite. Tetradic (or square) uses two complementary pairs together for a richer, four-color palette.
What's the difference between HEX, RGB, and HSL?
HEX is a six-digit code (like #3B82F6) that's the standard shorthand in web and app design. RGB describes a color as red, green, and blue intensity values (0-255 each), matching how screens physically render color by combining light. HSL — hue, saturation, lightness — describes the same color in a way that's usually more intuitive for humans to adjust: rotate hue to change the color family, adjust saturation for how vivid it is, adjust lightness for how light or dark.
How does a tool extract a color palette from a photo?
The general approach is to analyze the distribution of colors across the photo's pixels and identify the most dominant or representative clusters — grouping similar pixel colors together and picking a representative color from each group, rather than just averaging everything into a muddy single tone. The exact algorithm varies by app, but the goal is always the same: surface colors that actually look like they belong to the photo, not a mathematical average of it.
Why isn't camera-based paint color matching ever exactly precise?
Cameras and screens render color differently depending on lighting conditions, white balance, and the display you're viewing on — the same wall can look noticeably different in daylight versus indoor lighting. A good paint-matching tool accounts for this by comparing colors perceptually rather than as a literal pixel value, but it's still an estimate meant to get you close to the right paint chip, not a guaranteed exact match — checking the physical swatch in the room's actual lighting is still worth doing before committing.