Which palette is best for beginners?

Pico-8 (16 colors) — warm, saturated, balanced, designed for indie pixel artists. Great starting point.

How do I import a custom palette from Lospec?

Paste the Lospec palette URL into the import field. The generator parses the hex codes and adds the palette to your library.

Can I use any of these palettes commercially?

Yes. Palettes themselves are not copyrighted — you can use them freely in any project.

What is color quantization?

An algorithm that reduces an image to a small set of representative colors. We use median-cut quantization to find the most representative colors in your reference.

How many colors should a pixel art palette have?

4 for minimalist Game Boy-style work, 16 for classic limited palettes, 32 for full game palettes like DB32, 64+ for complex scenes.

✦ Free Online Tool

Pixel Art Color Palette Generator

Extract color palettes from any image, explore legendary retro gaming palettes, and build your own custom palette.

✅ No signup required🌐 Works in browser💼 Commercial use free🚫 No watermark

EXTRACT FROM IMAGE

Colors:

📂

Drop an image here or click to upload

PNG, JPG, WEBP, GIF, SVG — processed entirely in your browser

RETRO GAMING PALETTES

Pico-8

Game Boy

NES

CGA

Commodore 64

Atari 2600

SNES

Sweetie 16

DB32

EGA

Why palettes

Why color palettes matter in pixel art

In pixel art, color choice isn't just aesthetic — it's technical. Working with a limited, pre-defined palette forces intentional decisions and creates visual cohesion that unrestricted color never achieves. The legendary look of classic pixel art comes from hardware constraints that are now artistic choices. The NES could display 54 colors. The Game Boy had 4. Pico-8 has 16. These limitations forced artists to develop economical, expressive color language — one we still find beautiful today.

✦ Pro Tip

Lock a master palette before you start drawing. Every asset in your project — sprites, backgrounds, UI, effects — should pull from the same pool. That single decision is what makes indie pixel games feel unified.

The classics

Legendary palettes, explained

🟢

Pico-8 (16 colors, 2015)

Lexaloffle's fantasy console palette. Warm, saturated, designed to look great in any combination. The modern default for indie pixel art.

🔴

NES Palette (54 colors, 1983)

Nintendo's original palette, inseparable from childhood nostalgia. Mario's blue overalls, Link's green tunic — all defined by these specific shades.

⬜

Game Boy (4 colors, 1989)

Four shades of green-grey. The ultimate constraint. Creating within it teaches you to use every shade with extraordinary intention.

🟦

Commodore 64 (16 colors, 1982)

The distinctive blue-purple hues of the C64. Still used by demo-scene artists today.

🌸

Sweetie-16 (16 colors, modern)

A modern indie palette with the charm of retro limitations plus a touch more versatility. Brilliant for character art and game UI.

🎮

DB32 (32 colors, modern)

DawnBringer's 32-color palette — the gold standard for indie pixel art. Enough range for nuanced shading, few enough to stay cohesive.

Extraction

How to extract a palette from an image

If you have a reference image — a mood-board photo, a concept sketch, a colour photograph you love — you can extract its dominant colors to create a custom palette that captures the image's feeling. Our extractor uses median-cut color quantization: it divides the color space of your image into progressively smaller cubes, finding the most representative color in each region. The result is a set of colors that captures the essence of the image without duplicating similar shades.