Extract colors from an image

May 03, 2025

Sometimes you see a photo and love the colors in it. I wanted to make it super easy for anyone to find out what those colors are. So, I built a tool that pulls out the most used colors in a picture — and shows them to you!

You Can Use a Link or Upload Your Own Picture

You can use this tool two ways:

• Paste a link to an image
• Or upload one from your computer

Once you do, my tool reads the picture and shows you:

• The main color (called the "dominant" color)
• Other common colors that appear a lot
• Both in hex codes (like #FF5733) and RGB values (like 255, 87, 51)

Behind the Scenes (Cool Code Stuff)

Here’s a peek at how I made it work:

if 'image' not in response.headers.get('Content-Type', ''):
    flash("URL did not return an image.")
    return redirect(url_for('extract_colors'))

This checks if the link you gave is actually an image. If it’s not, I stop the process and show a friendly error message.

dominant_color_hex = '#{:02x}{:02x}{:02x}'.format(*dominant_color)
common_colors_hex = ['#{:02x}{:02x}{:02x}'.format(*color) for color in common_colors]

After the image is read, I turn the color data into hex codes — the same kind you see in web design, like #FF5733. I also keep the original RGB values, like (255, 87, 51), so you get both!

image_file.save(temp_path)
image_url = url_for('static', filename=f"uploads/{image_file.filename}")

When you upload a photo, I save it temporarily so it can be used right away on the page. You even see the image on the website with the colors below it!

🎨 Why This Is Fun and Useful

Designers, artists, and even people making presentations often need to match or reuse colors. With this tool, you just give it a picture and get the exact colors instantly — both as easy-to-use hex codes and human-readable RGB values.

This is part of how I make smart tools using Python and AI. I love building things that feel like magic — but are actually powered by code under the hood.

Try it out on the color tool page and see what colors you discover!