A look under the hood at how we turn your images into paint recipes.
Drop in any image — concept art, a photo, a screenshot from a game — and PaletteSmith pulls out the key colours and tells you exactly which miniature paints match them.
Picks out the bold, eye-catching colours even if they only appear in small areas — like glowing eyes, energy effects, or accent trim. Great for most artwork and character illustrations.
Focuses on what takes up the most space in the image. Use this when the background colours are just as important as the foreground — like a landscape or a richly coloured scene.
Every colour swatch is compared against a catalog of real miniature paints from popular brands. We use a colour science formula called Delta-E to find the closest match based on how your eyes actually see colour, not just the raw numbers.
Each match comes with a confidence score — the higher the percentage, the closer the paint is to the target colour.
PaletteSmith shows you how your colours relate to each other on the colour wheel — whether they’re all in the same family (monochromatic), sitting side by side (analogous), or spread across opposite ends (complementary). This helps you understand the mood and balance of your palette at a glance.
Don’t own the exact paint? If you’ve added paints to your library, PaletteSmith will suggest a mix of 2–3 paints you already have that gets you as close as possible to the target colour.
Each swatch is labelled Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, or Accent based on how visually striking it is. The most vibrant colour leads, not necessarily the one that covers the most area.
Paint catalog data is sourced from the Arcturus5404/miniature-paints community dataset, used under the MIT License. Maintained by Miniature Painter Pro / Rick Fleuren.
All colour matching is approximate. Screen calibration, display settings, paint batch variations, and finish types (matte, satin, gloss) can affect how colours appear. Always test on a sample before committing to your project.