What is an image color picker?

An image color picker, or eyedropper, reads the color of a pixel in an image. Designers use it to match a brand color from a logo, take a palette from a photo, or check the exact shade in a screenshot of a website or app. Because the color is read from the pixel data, the value is exact, not a guess by eye.

Tool description

This tool lets you open an image, or paste a screenshot from the clipboard, and click anywhere on it to pick a color. A magnifying loupe follows the pointer and shows the pixels around it, so you can hit the one you want. Every click adds a numbered point, and the color of each point is shown in the output format you choose, ready to copy.

Features

  • Pick colors from PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, BMP, and AVIF images, or paste an image with Ctrl+V
  • Magnifying loupe with the color under the pointer
  • Zoom up to 3200% with sharp pixels for small details and icons
  • Point sample or the average of a 3 × 3 to 101 × 101 pixel area, like the eyedropper in image editors
  • Copy each color as HEX, RGB, HSL, HWB, CMYK, LAB, and other formats
  • Numbered markers on the image for every picked point
  • Shows the opacity of semi-transparent pixels
  • Move the last point pixel by pixel with the arrow keys

How it works

The image is decoded in your browser and drawn to a canvas, and the color is read from the canvas pixels. Colors are converted to sRGB, the color space of the web, so the values match how the image looks on the page and can be used in CSS as they are. With an average sample, the colors of the pixels in the area are averaged, weighted by opacity so that transparent pixels don't darken the result. The image is never uploaded.

Tips

  • Photos and JPEG images have noise, so neighboring pixels often differ slightly. Use a 3 × 3 or 5 × 5 average to get the color you see rather than one noisy pixel.
  • For flat graphics such as logos, icons, and screenshots, use the point sample to get the exact color.
  • Changing the sample size updates the colors of all points you have already picked.
  • For GIF files, the colors are picked from the first frame.