The importance of building a congruent color palette for web design is paramount. A person’s eye will automatically make judgments on color based upon their human instinct. Green is seen as a representative of nature, purple reflects that of royalty, and white portrays a feeling of neutral calm and so forth. When selecting your own color scheme from a photo, online color palette generators can be a helpful tool to work with.
In order to do it from scratch, you will need a good photo with the feeling you are trying convey and maybe only two strong colors. Start off by choosing the most vibrant color, then the second most vibrant to compliment the first. The remaining three colors to select will be less saturated and designed to balance the first two. This is a tricky thing to do, so if it doesn’t give you the result you are looking for the first time, keep practicing, and maybe choose another photo.
Online color palette generators each provide a different result. The best way to find the one for you, is to try the same image in all of them, to see who gives you the results you are looking for.
Below are some examples using DeGraeve.com
The fantastic thing about this color palette generator is that not only can you use your own image, but the results provide you with a selection of five dull and five vibrant colors to choose from.
Some of Our Favorite Color Links
A warm thank you to Ben Nelson for the butterfly photograph
DEGRAEVE.COM
The fantastic thing about this colour palette generator is that not only can you use your own image, but the results provide you with a selection of five dull and five vibrant colours to choose from.
COLOURLOVERS.COM
This article is a long time favorite. Eighteen different colour palettes chosen entirely from butterflies. It is really a spectacular resource to check out.
BIGHUGELABS.COM
Here is a colour palette generator with some flexibility. Choose a photo from Flickr, Photobucket, a URL, or upload one right from your computer.
WPDFD.COM
An in-depth article about the use of colour and palettes on the web.
COLORHUNTER.COM
Upload your own photo to automatically create a colour palette, and view other people’s results. You can also join the community and save your favorite colour palette’s.
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER VICTORIA
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Greg
June 21, 2008 6:25 pmThanks for the links, was looking for a way to do this for a clients site.
Aggie Jane
June 25, 2008 5:45 amWaw!! Very useful. Thank you!
Kelli Myers
July 10, 2008 2:26 amNice thought. Thanks for sharing such great resources with us.
John Petrucci
July 15, 2008 12:25 amGood.. I really appreciate.
Erica Mike
July 15, 2008 8:13 pmIt seems to be great…
Logo Design
July 16, 2008 7:39 pmits really good.
Countess Gamble
July 17, 2008 6:17 pmThanks for all the links to the websites. I was trying to research different ways to use colors for my abstract composition. This is really very helpful to anyone taking a Web Design course.
Jon
July 31, 2008 10:12 amSorry for the blatant self promotion, but I hope it aids to the discussion. You should check out the hexsampler feature of hexday.com. It’s a bookmarklet that users of hexday can use to sample any image on line quickly and easily.
John Williams ok
August 20, 2008 5:01 amPretty nice site, wants to see much more on it!
Pitter
August 20, 2008 11:12 pmGood article.I like this.
Amrit Ray
December 9, 2008 6:15 amI did not know so much consideration needs to be given when choosing a color scheme for your website.
Web Hosting
January 9, 2009 3:03 pmOverall a very nice article. I also like the graphics used in your blog.
Green Printer Blog » Studio 7 Designs on cool trends in ‘green’ branding and design
January 29, 2009 11:47 am[...] We live and breathe design 12 hours a day, and are involved with many top designers. There’s a community of cutting-edge designers that are always pushing the design envelope forward. The future of green branding is going back to the earth. Nature and the photo-realistic incorporation of real elements are coming in the next year or so to the mainstream. We’ve been developing our colour palettes from photographs of nature for a few years. You can read up on that process here. [...]
Studio 7 Designs on authenticity and cool, green branding trends : Ecopreneurist
January 29, 2009 12:08 pm[...] We live and breathe design 12 hours a day, and are involved with many top designers. There’s a community of cutting-edge designers that are always pushing the design envelope forward. The future of green branding is going back to the earth. Nature and the photo-realistic incorporation of real elements are coming in the next year or so to the mainstream. We’ve been developing our colour palettes from photographs of nature for a few years. You can read up on that process here. [...]
Joy
February 8, 2009 2:26 amYour blog is a very useful resource for designers. Thanks for the links.
stylebutton
July 9, 2009 7:49 amBOOKMARKED | This is a great link resource! Thanks a lot! Up to now i knew some other sites. But this link list is more than better
Lida
August 1, 2009 2:07 amGood on your