Free Limited Palette Previewer
See how your reference would actually look painted with a Zorn palette, or any 2–6 pigments, mapped through the real mixing gamut of those tubes. Exports PNG. Free, with no sign-up, and your picture never leaves your device.
Drop an image here, or paste from clipboard
Your image stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF or BMP
Palette presets.Switch between Zorn, Primary triad, Earth and Candlelight; each preset shows a one-line note on what it suits.
Custom palette.Toggle pigments from the 22-pigment library to build your own set; the tool keeps between two and six selected.
Split, side by side, flicker.Check the preview against your reference with an adjustable split, two panels side by side, a flicker, or the result alone.
Export PNG.Export the preview as a full-resolution PNG, up to 40 megapixels; the screen view uses a 1,200 px copy.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Runs in your browser: your image never leaves your device
What is a limited palette?
A limited palette is a small, fixed set of pigments from which every color in a painting is mixed, so the painting holds only the colors those tubes reach. This previewer maps a reference onto the mixing gamut of 2 to 6 pigments, such as the Zorn preset of yellow ochre, cadmium red, ivory black and titanium white.
How to use the Limited Palette Previewer
The tool takes 5 steps, all on your device.
Drop or paste a reference photo. Nothing leaves your device.
Pick a preset (Zorn, Primary triad, Earth, Candlelight) or build a custom palette of 2–6 pigments.
The tool computes every color those paints can mix, maps your image onto it, and shows how much of the picture is within reach and which one tube would add the most.
Slide between original and preview: what survives is what the palette can honestly say; what shifts is where you'll have to interpret.
Export the preview PNG as a painting plan.
What the Limited Palette Previewer does
The Limited Palette Previewer mixes a gamut from real pigments, five ratios to a pair, and matches every color of the photo to the nearest mix.
A gamut mixed from real pigments
The Limited Palette Previewer builds its gamut by mixing your chosen pigments with the Kubelka-Munk model, so the preview holds colors the tubes make together, not colors picked from a chart. It sits among our color tools for artists that plan a painting's color before any paint is squeezed out.
Five ratios per pair
The gamut mixes every pair of paints at nine ratios from 4:1 to 1:4 and keeps each paint on its own; a four-paint palette such as Zorn gives six pairs and 54 pair mixes before any tints or shades.
Tints and shades from your own tubes
With a white in the palette, each paint is tinted at 1:1, 1:3 and 1:8 and pairs are mixed with it as three-paint mixtures; a black shades them likewise. Without them, there are no tints or shades, as on your real palette.
Nearest match in OKLab
Every pixel of the reference is replaced by the gamut color nearest to it in OKLab, and the difference is measured in CIEDE2000. The Reach map colors what the palette cannot mix closely, and clicking any spot names the mix that reaches it.
A count of reachable colors
The Custom palette panel reports how many distinct colors the current palette can reach. Adding or removing one tube changes that number, which makes the cost of each pigment visible.
Processing in the browser
The gamut is mixed and every pixel is mapped inside your browser, the mapping in a Web Worker, so the reference image is never uploaded.
For painters deciding which tubes a picture needs
Working painters, art students, hobbyists and art teachers use the preview to decide which tubes a picture needs.
Working painters
Working painters can run a commission reference through the Zorn preset and see whether the picture holds before setting out four tubes.
Art students
Art students can load one reference into the Primary triad and Earth presets in turn and compare how much of it each gamut keeps.
Hobbyists
Hobbyists with only a few tubes can select exactly those pigments in the custom palette and see what their current set can paint.
Art teachers
Art teachers can set a custom palette of two pigments plus Titanium White as a class exercise and show the result in Split view.
Why painters limit the palette on purpose
The Zorn palette (yellow ochre, cadmium red, ivory black, white) built some of the most convincing flesh in painting history with four tubes. Limited palettes work because mixing from few parents makes every color in the painting a relative of every other; harmony stops being something you chase and becomes the default. Constraints also speed decisions: with four piles of paint on the palette, you spend your session painting instead of deliberating.
But a limited palette is a gamble against the reference. Will that blue-eyed portrait survive a palette with no blue? (Yes, ultramarine-free Zorn mixtures read as blue-gray eyes in context, which is usually truer than blue anyway.) This tool answers the gamble before you squeeze out paint, so you see the painting the palette can make, not a fantasy version.
How to read the preview
Read the preview for what shifts against the reference, and watch three things. First, the darks: where the preview's shadows lift against the reference, the palette cannot reach those values, and you'll need to accept a higher-key painting or add a dark. Second, saturated accents: a saturated green in a Zorn preview collapses to gray-ochre, which is the tool telling you that passage must be redesigned, not matched. Third, flesh: if the mid-tones hold together under Zorn, they will hold on canvas. That gamut was literally built for skin.
Compare side by side and squint. If the preview reads as the same image at a squint, the palette carries the structure; hue substitutions at full chroma matter far less than you fear.
Choosing a preset
Zorn is the portrait and figure standard: warm darks, gentle greens from black-plus-ochre, clean tints. Primary triad (warm red, cool yellow, ultramarine, white) reaches the widest range of hues of the four presets and is the teaching palette for learning mixing. Earth (ochre, sienna, umber, black, white) keeps every mixture low in chroma, so each mixture is already a tone and the painting stays tonal without graying down. Candlelight pairs burnt umber and orange against ultramarine for night and interior scenes, where warm/cool contrast does the storytelling.
Custom palettes of two pigments plus white are a classic discipline exercise: burnt sienna and ultramarine alone can carry an entire figure study, and seeing your reference survive that constraint teaches you more about value than any color theory chapter. To turn a passage from the preview into a ratio, type its color into the paint mixing simulator, which searches recipes from the same pigment library.
Further reading
The page below goes further into the ideas the Limited Palette Previewer works with, and opens on the site named beside it.
- Handprint: palette design and mixing gamuts (handprint.com)
Tips from a working artist
From Sujith Puthran, artist and founder: what I actually do at the easel.
Run every reference through Zorn first, even if you plan a fuller palette. It tells you whether the image's bones are value-driven (survives) or chroma-driven (collapses).
If the preview kills one crucial accent (the red coat, the green door), that's your answer: add exactly one pigment for that accent and leave the rest limited.
Print the preview and mix to match it, not the original; the preview is what your paint can truthfully do.
Check the preview's darkest dark against your reference's; if the palette can't reach it, design the painting in a higher key deliberately rather than fighting for depth you don't own.
Why your picture stays on your device
The Limited Palette is a program your browser downloads and runs by itself. When you choose a picture, the browser reads it from your files and does the work on your own phone or computer; no copy is sent to this site or to anyone else, and what you export is saved straight from the browser. That is why there is nothing to upload and nothing to sign up for. The privacy page says what the site does collect.
Questions about the Limited Palette Previewer
The 7 questions below open with the Zorn palette and vanished colors, then explain the preview, custom pigments and privacy.
The theory
What is the Zorn palette?
A limited palette of yellow ochre, cadmium red, ivory black and titanium white, used by Anders Zorn for portraits. Its mixtures cover the range of flesh tones and guarantee color harmony because every mix shares the same parents.
Why do some colors in my photo disappear?
Some colors in your photo disappear because they are outside the palette's mixing gamut: no combination of your tubes can make them. The preview pulls them to the closest honest mix, showing you exactly what you'd have to redesign or interpret.
Using it
How does the preview work?
The preview works in two steps. First the tool mixes your paints with Kubelka-Munk paint physics: pairs at nine ratios, plus tints and shades with the palette's own white and black. Then the tool maps every pixel to the nearest mixable color and measures how far off it is.
What if my palette has no white or black?
Then the gamut has no tints or shades, because your palette could not make them either. Add a white (for example Titanium White) or a black to the palette, or watch the Best next tube panel, which ranks every library paint by how much of the picture it would bring within reach.
How do I choose pigments for a custom palette?
Choose one pigment for each hue family the reference cannot lose, keep one light and one dark among them, and stay within the limit of 6. Hues that sit opposite each other on the color wheel neutralize one another when mixed, so a complementary pair gives the palette its grays.
Can I use my own pigments?
Yes, you can use your own pigments: switch to the custom palette and pick 2 to 6 pigments from the library of 22 common artist pigments.
Privacy
Is my image uploaded anywhere?
No, your image is not uploaded anywhere. The gamut computation and image mapping run entirely in your browser.
Choose a preset or your own pigments, compare the preview with the reference, and redesign the passages the palette cannot reach.
Free · No sign-up · Runs in your browser