Image Colour Picker

Image Colour Picker finds the exact colour of any spot in a photo, logo or screenshot. Click the picture and copy the colour code as HEX, RGB or HSL, ready for your website, design app or Canva. It’s free and your image never leaves your device.

How to pick a colour from an image

1. Drop an image onto the dashed zone, click Choose image, or paste a screenshot with Ctrl/Cmd+V. Supported types are ordinary browser image formats (PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF and similar).
2. Move over the picture to see a circular magnifier loupe and a live hex preview of the centre pixel. Click (or tap and lift on touch) to lock that colour into the result panel.
3. Copy Hex, RGB or HSL with the buttons beside each readout. Transparent pixels also show an Alpha percentage so you know when a PNG sample is not fully opaque.
4. Recent picks appear under Picked colours (up to twelve). Click a swatch to reselect it, use Copy all hex for a newline-separated list, or Clear history to wipe the strip. Remove image clears the canvas without touching your history.
5. Where your browser supports it, Sample from screen opens the system eyedropper so you can grab a colour from anywhere on your screen, even outside the uploaded image.

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What the values mean

HEX (#RRGGBB) is the everyday web colour code: each pair of digits is a channel from 00 to FF. This tool always shows uppercase six-digit hex so values paste cleanly into CSS, SVG and design hand-offs. RGB spells out the same channels as ordinary numbers from 0 to 255, which some apps ask for. HSL describes hue (0–360°), saturation and lightness as percentages; many modern design tokens prefer HSL because you can nudge lightness without rebuilding the hue.

None of these formats is “better”. They all describe the same pixel. Image Colour Picker keeps all three in sync so you can copy whichever your destination expects. When the sampled pixel has transparency, the RGB/HSL values still describe the colour channels while the Alpha note tells you how opaque that pixel was (0% is fully transparent).

Uses and tips

Typical jobs include pulling brand accents from a logo PNG, checking the exact fill behind a UI control in a screenshot, building a mood board from photo references, or verifying that a compressed JPEG still matches a design token. Prefer PNG or lossless sources when accuracy matters; heavy JPEG compression can shift edge pixels. Sample from flat areas rather than anti-aliased borders when you need the “true” brand colour.

Once you have a hex, try the Colour Palette Generator to grow related swatches, or the Colour Contrast Checker to confirm text remains readable on that background. Everything on this page stays in your tab, which makes it ideal for client work you do not want to upload.

On phones and tablets, drag to move the loupe and lift to pick. The canvas uses a crosshair cursor on desktop. If the image is larger than the tool width it is scaled to fit while sampling still reads from a full-resolution offscreen copy, so zoomed-out clicks stay accurate.

FAQ

Does my image get uploaded?

No. The file is read only in your browser with the Canvas API. Catpool never receives, logs or stores the image or the colours you pick. Refresh the page and everything starts clean (aside from whatever you still have on the clipboard).

How accurate is the sample?

Very. The picker reads the colour from your image at full size, even when it is shown smaller on screen, and the loupe shows a zoomed-in view of the real pixels. If a colour still looks slightly “off” compared with a brand guide, the image itself is usually to blame. Heavily compressed JPEGs and resized screenshots change colours a little.

What about transparent PNGs?

Transparent and semi-transparent pixels are supported. You still get HEX/RGB/HSL for the colour channels, plus an Alpha note (for example “Alpha 0%” for a fully clear pixel). The checkerboard behind the canvas is only a visual cue; it is not sampled.

Does it work on mobile?

Yes. Drag your finger to move the loupe and lift to pick. Pasting from the clipboard depends on your phone, so the Choose image button is the most reliable way to load a photo. The optional screen eyedropper is usually desktop Chromium-only and stays hidden elsewhere.

Is history saved between visits?

No. The twelve-swatch history lives only in the current page session. That keeps the tool private and simple, so copy what you need before you close the tab.

How do I find the hex code of a colour in a picture?

Load the picture, click the colour you want and press the copy button next to Hex. You get a code like #3FB37F that you can paste into Canva, Photoshop, Figma, Word or your website’s settings.

Is this the same as an image color picker?

Yes. Colour and color are just the British and American spellings. It does the same job as any image color picker, with no app and no upload.

Related: Colour Palette Generator, Colour Contrast Checker, Image Compressor, Meme Maker, Create, Catpool home.