🎨 Overview
palette-from-image-ai is a Windows desktop tool that reads any image — a screenshot, a photo, a game capture, a texture, a painting — and turns it into a usable color palette. Not five swatches scraped off a Wikipedia page either. The embedded vision model segments the image, clusters color by perceptual distance, weights each cluster by how much of the frame it actually owns, and emits a palette you can drop straight into a shader, a CSS file, an ASE swatch, a Godot theme, a clip-studio brush set, or a materials list.
It runs offline. It runs on one .exe. You extract the archive, double-click, and you're looking at a palette in under six seconds.
| Category |
Details |
| Product name |
palette-from-image-ai |
| Type |
Standalone Windows desktop application (.exe) |
| Core engine |
On-device vision model + perceptual color quantizer |
| Input |
PNG, JPG, WEBP, BMP, TIFF, GIF, AVIF |
| Output |
HEX, RGB, HSL, LAB, ASE, GPL, CSS vars, JSON, PNG swatch sheet |
| Distribution |
GitHub landing page → download → extract → run |
| Install footprint |
Portable. No installer, no registry writes, no runtime deps |
| Year |
2026 release line |
The whole point is that palette extraction stopped being a toy when the model got good at understanding what's in the frame. A sunset photo doesn't hand you four near-identical oranges anymore — it hands you the horizon glow, the deep water, the sand shadow, and the cloud highlight as separate, meaningful tones.
📖 What is palette-from-image-ai
A glossary, because "palette" means different things to different people and this tool means all of them at once.
| Term |
Explanation |
| Palette |
An ordered set of colors, usually 5–16, each with a role (dominant, accent, background, shadow, highlight). |
| Segmentation |
The model splitting an image into regions that belong together — sky vs. subject vs. ground — before sampling color. |
| Perceptual distance |
Measuring how different two colors look to a human eye, not how different their RGB numbers are. Uses CIEDE2000 in LAB space. |
| Cluster weight |
How much of the image a color family actually occupies, used to rank palette order. |
| Harmony mode |
Forcing the output toward a named scheme — analogous, complementary, triadic, or split-complement. |
| Role tagging |
Auto-labeling each swatch: this is the base, this is the accent, this is the dark you'll use for outlines. |
| Swatch sheet |
A rendered PNG of your palette with hex labels, ready to paste into a doc or Discord. |
What you get out of it:
- A palette that respects regions, not just raw pixel frequency.
- Role-tagged swatches so you know which color does which job.
- Harmony constraints when you want the output to look designed, not sampled.
- Twelve export formats so the palette drops into whatever pipeline you already have.
- The whole thing runs on your machine. No upload, no account, no network call.
🧩 Key Features
| Feature |
Description |
Benefit |
| Region-aware extraction |
Segments image, samples per region, merges perceptually |
No more near-duplicate swatches |
| Perceptual clustering |
CIEDE2000 in LAB, not naive RGB k-means |
Colors match what your eye sees |
| Role tagging |
Auto-labels base / accent / shadow / highlight |
Skip the guesswork |
| Harmony constraints |
Analogous, complementary, triadic, split-comp |
Palette looks intentional |
| 12 export formats |
HEX, RGB, HSL, LAB, ASE, GPL, CSS, JSON, PNG, ACO, SKETCH, SVG |
Fits any pipeline |
| Batch mode |
Drop a folder, get a palette per image |
Whole asset packs in one pass |
| Palette diff |
Compare two palettes, see the delta |
Track art-direction changes |
| Locked swatches |
Pin a color, re-extract the rest around it |
Brand-color-safe |
| Eyeball sampler |
Click any pixel for exact value |
Manual override always available |
| GPU toggle |
Optional DX12 acceleration for big images |
4K frame → palette in ~1.2s |
| Portable profile |
Settings live next to the .exe |
Move it on a USB stick |
| No telemetry |
Zero outbound calls |
Air-gap friendly |
⬇️ Download
---
🧱 The Problem
You've lived every one of these.
- You grab a screenshot, run it through an online palette site, and get five colors that are all the same orange with different hex codes.
- The palette ignores the one accent color that made the image interesting.
- You need the palette in ASE for Photoshop and the site only gives you PNG.
- The tool uploads your image to a server you've never heard of and you're now wondering who owns the render.
- Your art director changes the sky and you have to re-extract the entire palette from scratch.
- You're doing a whole asset pack — 40 sprites — and doing them one at a time on a website is a slow death.
- The output has no roles, so you spend twenty minutes figuring out which swatch is "the dark one."
🛠️ The Solution
| Problem |
Solution |
| Near-duplicate swatches |
Perceptual clustering in LAB, deduped by CIEDE2000 threshold |
| Ignored accent colors |
Region segmentation weights small-but-distinct regions higher |
| Format lock-in |
12 export formats including ASE, GPL, ACO, CSS, JSON |
| Uploaded images |
Fully offline; no network code compiled in |
| Re-extraction after edits |
Locked swatches — pin what stays, re-derive the rest |
| One-at-a-time workflows |
Batch mode: whole folder, one palette each |
| No role info |
Auto role-tagging with editable labels |
🎯 Quick Start
- 🗂️ Extract the archive. Right-click the downloaded
.zip, choose Extract All, pick a folder you own (Documents or a tools directory is fine).
- 🖱️ Run the
.exe. Double-click it. Windows SmartScreen may show a warning on first run — click More info → Run anyway. No admin rights required.
- 🖼️ Drop an image in. Drag any PNG/JPG/WEBP onto the window, or use File → Open Image.
- 🎚️ Tune the palette. Slide the swatch count (5–16), pick a harmony mode if you want one, lock any color you want to keep.
- 📤 Export. Hit Export, choose your format, done. Or right-click the swatch strip → Copy as HEX.
That's the whole loop. First-run to exported palette is under a minute.
📦 Installation
1. Get the archive
Use the download link above. You'll receive a .zip containing the .exe and a models/ folder. Do not separate them — the vision model lives in models/.
Running the .exe directly from the zip viewer will fail because the model files can't be memory-mapped from a compressed container. Extract the whole folder first.
3. First launch
Double-click the .exe. On the first run, the app builds a small shader cache in ./cache/ — takes about 3 seconds. Every run after that is instant.
No installer. No PATH changes. No Python. No Node. Delete the folder and it's fully uninstalled.
🖥️ System Requirements
| Component |
Minimum |
Recommended |
| OS |
Windows 10 21H2 (x64) |
Windows 11 23H2+ (x64) |
| CPU |
4-core, SSE4.2 |
8-core, AVX2 |
| RAM |
4 GB |
16 GB |
| GPU |
Integrated (DX11) |
Discrete DX12, 4 GB VRAM |
| Storage |
450 MB free |
1.2 GB free (SSD) |
| Display |
1280×720 |
1920×1080 or higher |
| Input |
Mouse + keyboard |
+ colorimeter (optional) |
| Runtime |
None |
None |
The app runs entirely CPU-side if you don't have a DX12 GPU. Expect ~5–8s per 4K image on CPU, ~1.2s with GPU acceleration enabled.
📊 Comparison
| Aspect |
Online palette sites |
Generic k-means scripts |
This Tool |
| Region awareness |
No |
No |
Yes — segmentation-based |
| Perceptual distance |
Varies |
Rarely |
Yes — CIEDE2000 |
| Offline |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Export formats |
2–4 |
1–2 |
12 |
| Batch processing |
Paid tiers only |
Manual scripting |
Built-in |
| Swatch locking |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Harmony constraints |
Sometimes |
No |
Yes — 4 modes |
| Role tagging |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Speed (4K image) |
N/A (upload) |
5–20s |
~1.2s (GPU) |
🧭 Feature Catalog
29 modules, grouped by what they actually do.
- Segmenter — splits the image into semantically coherent regions before any sampling.
- Region Sampler — pulls color within each region using a weighted grid, biased toward the region's center of mass.
- Perceptual Clusterer — CIEDE2000 merge pass, collapses near-duplicates under a tunable threshold.
- Dominance Ranker — orders swatches by area-weighted presence.
- Vibrance Detector — identifies the most saturated region and flags it as a candidate accent.
- Shadow/Highlight Extractor — pulls the darkest and brightest meaningful tones separately from the main run.
🎚️ Palette Control
- Swatch Count Slider — 5 to 16 swatches, live-updating.
- Harmony Engine — analogous, complementary, triadic, split-complement. Output is snapped to the scheme within tolerance.
- Swatch Lock — pin any color; the rest get re-derived around it.
- Manual Eyeball Sampler — click any pixel, get its exact value and add it as a swatch.
- Reorder Drag — drag swatches to reorder; order is preserved on export.
- Role Tagger — auto-assigns base / accent / shadow / highlight / neutral, editable per swatch.
📤 Export & Interop
- HEX / RGB / HSL / LAB Export — plain text, one per line.
- ASE Export — Adobe Swatch Exchange, drops into Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects.
- GPL Export — GIMP / Inkscape palette files.
- ACO Export — Photoshop legacy swatch format.
- CSS Variables Export —
--color-1: #xxxxxx; block, ready to paste.
- JSON Export — structured with roles, weights, and hex.
- PNG Swatch Sheet — rendered palette card with hex labels for docs and Discord.
- SVG Swatch Sheet — vector version for print-ready docs.
⚙️ Workflow
- Batch Folder Mode — point at a directory, get one palette per image.
- Palette Diff — compare two palettes, see which swatches moved and by how much.
- Recent Palettes — the last 20 palettes, restorable with one click.
- Preset Manager — save harmony + count + threshold combos as named presets.
- Portable Profile — everything lives in
./profile/, next to the .exe.
🧪 Advanced
- GPU Acceleration Toggle — DX12 compute path for large images.
- Custom Distance Function — swap CIEDE2000 for CMC or CIE94 if you need it.
- Threshold Override — expose the dedup threshold directly for finicky images.
- CLI Mode —
.exe --input foo.png --count 8 --format css for scripting.
- Watch Folder — point it at a folder; new images get processed automatically.
🚦 All Modules Status
| Module |
Status |
Description |
| Segmenter |
✅ Working |
Region splitting on all supported formats |
| Region Sampler |
✅ Working |
Weighted-grid sampling per region |
| Perceptual Clusterer |
✅ Working |
CIEDE2000 merge, tunable threshold |
| Dominance Ranker |
✅ Working |
Area-weighted ordering |
| Vibrance Detector |
✅ Working |
Accent flagging |
| Shadow/Highlight Extractor |
✅ Working |
Boundary tone extraction |
| Harmony Engine |
✅ Working |
4 named schemes |
| Swatch Lock |
✅ Working |
Pin-and-rederive |
| Eyeball Sampler |
✅ Working |
Per-pixel picker |
| ASE Export |
✅ Working |
Adobe Swatch Exchange v1.0 |
| GPL Export |
✅ Working |
GIMP palette format |
| ACO Export |
✅ Working |
Photoshop legacy swatches |
| CSS Variables Export |
✅ Working |
Ready-to-paste block |
| JSON Export |
✅ Working |
Role + weight + hex |
| PNG Swatch Sheet |
✅ Working |
Rendered card |
| SVG Swatch Sheet |
✅ Working |
Vector version |
| Batch Folder Mode |
✅ Working |
Multithreaded |
| Palette Diff |
✅ Working |
Delta report |
| Preset Manager |
✅ Working |
Named presets |
| CLI Mode |
✅ Working |
Scriptable |
| Watch Folder |
✅ Working |
Auto-process on file drop |
| GPU Acceleration |
✅ Working |
DX12 path |
| Custom Distance Function |
✅ Working |
CMC, CIE94, CIEDE2000 |
| Threshold Override |
✅ Working |
Exposed |
| Role Tagger |
✅ Working |
Editable labels |
| Recent Palettes |
✅ Working |
20-item history |
| Portable Profile |
✅ Working |
Local config |
| Reorder Drag |
✅ Working |
Order preserved on export |
| Swatch Count Slider |
✅ Working |
5–16 range |
⚠️ Known Issues
| Issue |
Solution |
| SmartScreen warning on first run |
Click More info → Run anyway. The .exe is unsigned; a signed build is on the roadmap. |
| Palette looks flat on highly saturated images |
Lower the dedup threshold in Settings → Advanced to 2.0 and re-extract. |
| Batch mode stalls on network drives |
Copy images to a local folder first — the segmenter needs memory-mapped file access. |
| ASE file not showing in Photoshop |
Photoshop caches swatches. Restart Photoshop after importing. |
| GPU toggle greyed out |
Your GPU doesn't expose a DX12 compute queue. App runs CPU-only; no functional loss beyond speed. |
| Very large TIFFs (>200 MP) fail to open |
Downscale to under 100 MP first. The 16-bit TIFF path is on the roadmap. |
❔ FAQ
| Question |
Answer |
| Is it really offline? |
Yes. No network code is compiled into the binary. You can run it with the Wi-Fi card disabled. |
| Do I need an account? |
No. There's no account system, no login, no telemetry. |
| What formats can I feed it? |
PNG, JPG, WEBP, BMP, TIFF, GIF, AVIF. Multi-frame GIFs use the first frame. |
| Can I use it for commercial work? |
Yes. MIT license. Attribution appreciated but not required. |
| How many swatches should I pick? |
5 for minimalist UI, 8 for general art direction, 12–16 for full texture work. |
| Why does the palette differ from a k-means script? |
Perceptual distance + region segmentation. K-means on RGB treats two visually identical oranges as different colors. |
| Can I script it? |
Yes — CLI mode. .exe --input foo.png --count 8 --format css --out palette.css. |
| Does it need admin rights? |
No. Portable, user-space, no registry writes. |
| Where are my settings saved? |
./profile/ next to the .exe, unless you point it elsewhere in Settings → Storage. |
| Can I pin a brand color? |
Yes — add the swatch, click the lock icon, re-extract. The rest of the palette re-derives around it. |
| Why is the first launch slow? |
Shader cache build. ~3 seconds once, instant after. |
| Will there be a macOS or Linux build? |
The engine is portable; a Linux CLI build is on the roadmap. macOS is unlikely due to the DX12 path. |
🧰 Usage Guidelines
| Allowed |
Not allowed |
| Personal art and design work |
Redistributing the .exe under a different name |
| Commercial projects (MIT) |
Removing the license header from source |
| Game asset pipelines |
Selling the app as-is without modification |
| Texture / shader authoring |
Claiming authorship of the underlying vision model |
| Educational use and research |
Using it to scrape copyrighted images at scale |
🩹 Changelog
- v2.4.1 — Fixed ASE export on palettes with fewer than 6 swatches. Watch Folder now respects file locks.
- v2.4.0 — Added SVG swatch sheet export. GPU path is now default-on when a DX12 device is present.
- v2.3.2 — Region sampler no longer biases toward the frame center on wide-aspect images.
- v2.3.0 — Harmony Engine gained split-complement. CLI mode gained
--harmony flag.
💡 Tips for Best Results
- Give the segmenter a clean image. Cropped, well-lit source beats a cluttered screenshot every time.
- If you want a specific color to survive extraction, lock it before you slide the swatch count.
- For UI work, set count to 8 and pick complementary — the output tends to land as base/neutral/accent without further edits.
- Batch mode is fastest on an SSD. Network drives add ~200ms per file in memory-mapped reads.
- Use Palette Diff after an art-direction change to see exactly which tones moved.
- Export to JSON if you're piping into a build step — it carries roles and weights, not just hex.
- Lower the dedup threshold to 2.0 for photographic sources, 4.0 for flat-design or pixel art.
- The eyeball sampler respects your monitor's ICC profile if Settings → Color Management is on.
palette-from-image-ai exists because palette extraction deserves the same seriousness as the rest of your pipeline. The model reads the image the way you read it — regions, meaning, weight — and hands you a palette you can actually ship. Extract the folder, run the `.exe`, drop an image in. The rest is five seconds of clicking and a color set you'll keep.
It's a standalone Windows desktop app that pulls a clean, role-tagged color palette out of any image using an on-device vision model and perceptual color clustering, with no cloud upload or subscription involved.