Count the Colours in an Image
Find how many distinct colour groups an image contains, and see the most common ones with their hex codes.
Free preview · No signup · ~10 seconds
Drop an image
PNG, JPG, WebP or SVG — up to 20 MB
Runs entirely in your browser. Your image is never uploaded.
What counting colours actually tells you
Groups, not raw values
A 24-bit image can hold sixteen million values and a photograph routinely uses tens of thousands, nearly all imperceptibly different. The count here is of perceptually distinct groups, which is the number that actually means something.
Why the count has consequences
Screen printing needs one screen per colour. Embroidery needs one thread per colour. Vinyl needs one cut per colour. Each additional colour is a real cost, so knowing the count before you send artwork tells you what a job will actually price at.
It predicts PNG file size
PNG compresses by finding repetition, so an image with few distinct colours compresses far better than one with many. A surprisingly high count on what should be flat artwork usually means JPEG compression or a gradient has crept in.
A high count on flat art is a warning
A logo that should have three colours and reports forty has been through a lossy format. The extra values are compression noise around the edges, and they will show up as fringing when you try to recolour or key it.
Reducing the count deliberately
If the number is too high for what you need, posterize or reduce the colours rather than accepting the noise. Both give you control over which colours survive instead of leaving it to the encoder.
How to count the colours in an image
Upload your image
Drop in the image you want to analyse.
Read the count
The number of distinct colour groups appears above the swatches, with the most common ones shown.
Copy what you need
Click a swatch to copy one hex, or copy them all.
Count the Colours in an Image — in the editor
The real editor, start to finish — no signup needed to try it yourself.
Free preview · No signup · ~10 seconds
When the count matters
Print quoting
Know the colour count before sending artwork to a screen printer.
Embroidery
Check how many thread colours a design will actually need.
File size diagnosis
Understand why a PNG that should be small is not.
Spotting compression damage
Catch JPEG artefacts in artwork that should be flat colour.
Or just ask
Describe the edit in your own words
Type what you want changed and the assistant does it on the canvas — each step lands as a layer you can reopen, so nothing it does is baked in.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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How to Make a Logo White in Photoshop (3 Methods, One of Them Non-Destructive)
Color Overlay, Lock Transparent Pixels, and why Hue/Saturation is the wrong tool even though Lightness looks like it works — plus the fringe that makes a white logo look dirty on a dark background, and how to remove it.
How to Replace a Color in Canva (What's Possible on Elements, and What Isn't on Uploads)
Canva can swap colors on vector elements one swatch at a time. On an uploaded photo or PNG there is no per-color control at all — here is the full picture, including the Duotone approximation and its limits.
Count your image colours
Upload an image and see how many distinct colours it holds.