About Color Tools

Color picker, converter, palette generator and accessibility checker

Color is one of the highest-impact decisions in any design — the right palette establishes brand, sets mood, and most importantly meets accessibility standards so your interface is usable by everyone. ToolsRift offers 20+ color tools that cover every step of working with color in the browser, from picking a single hue to generating a full accessible palette to verifying that your text contrasts against its background.

Tools include a precise color picker with HEX, RGB, HSL, HSV and CMYK inputs, format converters that round-trip between every common model, palette generators (complementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic, split-complementary), gradient maker with multi-stop support, WCAG AA/AAA contrast checker, color-blindness simulator, named-color reference (all 147 CSS named colors), shades and tints generators, and color-from-image picker.

Every tool is built for designers who want fast iteration and for developers who want copy-paste-ready output in the exact format their code needs.

Why ToolsRift

Why our color tools are different

Most color tools on the web stop at "convert HEX to RGB". ToolsRift goes further: every palette tells you the WCAG contrast ratio of its colors against white and black, the picker shows you accessible text colors automatically, and the gradient maker warns you when consecutive stops are too similar to be perceptible. That extra rigor saves a round of accessibility feedback from your QA team.

All tools work entirely offline once loaded. The eyedropper that picks colors from images runs locally — your uploaded image is never sent anywhere. Generated palettes can be exported as JSON, CSS variables, SCSS, Tailwind config, or a printable PDF swatch sheet.

How It Works

How to use color tools

1
Pick or paste your starting color
Click any color on the picker, type a HEX/RGB/HSL value, or upload an image to extract its dominant colors. All inputs sync — change one and the others update instantly.
2
Generate a palette or variation
Choose a palette type (complementary, analogous, etc.) or generate tints, shades and tones automatically. Adjust the count and steps to taste.
3
Check accessibility
Each color shows its contrast ratio against white and black backgrounds. The dedicated contrast checker tests any two colors and reports WCAG AA and AAA pass/fail for normal and large text.
4
Export in your favorite format
Copy individual values as HEX, RGB or HSL. Export the full palette as CSS custom properties, SCSS variables, Tailwind config, JSON, or a printable swatch.
Use Cases

Who uses color tools?

From everyday tasks to professional workflows — here are some of the most common ways people use these tools.

›Designers building brand palettes from a single primary color
›Front-end developers exporting palettes as CSS variables
›Accessibility specialists testing WCAG contrast for client audits
›Marketers matching brand colors across web, print and social
›Game and motion designers picking color-blind safe palettes
›Photographers extracting dominant colors from product images
›Students learning color theory through interactive examples
FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to common questions about our color tools.

What's the difference between HSL and HSV?+
Both describe color by hue, saturation and lightness/value, but they differ in how saturation and brightness interact. HSL is more intuitive for designers because pure colors are at 50% lightness; HSV keeps pure colors at 100% value. ToolsRift converts between all models so you can pick whichever feels natural.
What WCAG contrast ratios should I aim for?+
For normal body text, WCAG AA requires 4.5:1 minimum, AAA requires 7:1. Large text (18pt+, or 14pt+ bold) needs 3:1 (AA) or 4.5:1 (AAA). Non-text UI like icons and form borders need 3:1. The checker reports all of these per pair.
Can I extract colors from a photo?+
Yes. Upload an image and the tool extracts the dominant 5-10 colors using k-means clustering, sorted by frequency. The image is processed entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
Will the palette work in dark mode?+
The palette generator can produce light and dark variants of any palette automatically. Each color comes with a "darker" and "lighter" equivalent that maintains hue while flipping perceived brightness — ideal for theming.
Are all 147 CSS named colors supported?+
Yes. The named-color reference shows every CSS-spec color with its HEX value, a swatch and contrast information. Searchable by name or visual similarity.
Explore More

Related tool categories

Continue exploring ToolsRift with these related tool collections.

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