Create Stunning Color Schemes with ColorPalettes.net

By Jake Rocheleau. in Toolkit. Updated on April 6, 2023.

Pro photography has the best colors since they’re pulled straight from life. But the color scheme of a photo doesn’t translate nicely into an interface without some effort.

That’s where ColorPalettes.net can help. It’s a free color resource that organizes palettes based on stock photos. Each photo has five related colors pulled together that blend nicely and offer inspiration for designers.

From the home page, you’ll see a handful of color palettes to get you started. If you see one you like just click the name to get a detail view of that palette.

On the details page, you’ll see all five colors listed with their hex codes. This makes it super easy to copy/paste to any program such as Photoshop or Illustrator.

From the details page, you’ll also find a handful of related color schemes. These often pull from the same color palette and the recommendation engine is surprisingly accurate.

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You can also browse by related tags which are listed directly under the photo section. Unfortunately, the photos aren’t labeled or sourced, which can be a bummer if you’re looking for the actual photo. But with reverse image tools, you can usually find image sources with just a few clicks.

And, if you look right underneath the description you’ll also find a small five-star rating system. You can vote on any color scheme to rank your favorites and contribute to the community.

At this time, I do not see any way to upload photos directly and have color schemes generated. I think the site is fully hand curated, so it takes manual effort to find what yo need. However, it does have 400+ pages of archives to browse through along with hundreds of tags.

The most useful sorting tools, however, are the color squares in the top navigation. You can click any color from yellow to cyan, or neutrals such as white to find related color schemes.

Digital designers can get a lot from this color library as a tool for web design. But, ColorPalettes.net can also be used by interior designers, artists, and even photographers who want to delve a bit deeper into color schemes.

This is one of the most unique color matching sites on the web and it’s a lot of fun to browse. You can even stay up-to-date with their latest color palettes by following on Facebook or Pinterest.