To make a custom pixel art palette, decide how many colors you need (8 to 16 covers most work), build a few short light-to-dark “ramps” for the materials you’ll draw, like skin, foliage and sky, make sure you have a true dark and a true light, and then test the palette on real images before you commit. Good palettes are built in ramps, not picked one color at a time, and they’re trimmed ruthlessly.
How many colors should a pixel art palette have? #
Fewer than you think. Every color you add is one more decision in every pixel.
| Colors | Feels like | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1-bit, black and white | Bold graphics, early Mac style |
| 4 | Game Boy | Moody, monochrome, very cohesive |
| 8 | Early home computer | Icons, simple sprites |
| 16 | PICO-8, Sweetie 16, Commodore 64 | Most games, portraits and scenes |
| 32 | 16-bit era | Detailed scenes with several materials |
| 64 | Sega Master System’s full set | Near-realistic, less stylized |
For converting photos, 12 to 16 colors is the sweet spot: enough for skin, hair and background, few enough to look like pixel art. We explain where these historic sizes came from in why old games had so few colors.
What is a color ramp? #
A ramp is a sequence of shades for one material, from dark to light. A skin ramp might have four steps: shadow, mid-shadow, mid-tone and highlight. A grass ramp might have three.
Two habits separate good ramps from flat ones:
- Even steps in brightness. Each step should be clearly lighter than the one before. Check it by viewing the ramp in grayscale.
- Hue shifting. Instead of just darkening the same hue, pixel artists usually shift shadows toward cooler colors (blue or purple) and highlights toward warmer ones (yellow or orange). A green ramp that runs from blue-green shadows to yellow-green highlights looks far richer than one that just goes dark green to light green.
How to build a palette, step by step #
- Decide what it’s for. Portraits need a skin ramp. Nature scenes need greens and blues. A mood palette (sunset, neon, pastel) starts from the feeling rather than from materials.
- Pick your darkest and lightest colors first. They don’t have to be pure black and white. A deep purple and a warm cream often look better and set the mood for everything in between.
- Build 2 to 4 ramps of 3 to 5 steps. One for each main material.
- Share colors between ramps. The darkest step of your skin ramp can double as the shadow of your wood ramp. Sharing keeps the palette small and cohesive.
- Add one or two accents. A saturated red or yellow for small details, used sparingly.
- Check it in grayscale. If two colors turn into the same gray, one of them is probably redundant.
- Test it on real images, then trim. Remove any color that hardly appears.
An example 13-color portrait palette #
Here’s a small palette we put together for converting portraits. Use it as a starting point and adjust to taste:
| Role | Hex codes, dark to light |
|---|---|
| Darks | #1a1423, #3d2c3e |
| Skin ramp | #6b3e3a, #a8665a, #d9a07f, #f5d6b8 |
| Cool background ramp | #2b3a55, #4f6d8f, #8fb3cf |
| Greens | #3f5b3a, #7fa05a |
| Accent | #e0584a |
| Light | #f4f0e6 |
The darks lean purple, the skin ramp shifts from red-brown shadows to a warm highlight, and the background ramp is cool, so faces stand out against it.
Should you borrow an existing palette? #
Often, yes. Community palettes have been tested on thousands of images. Lospec’s palette list hosts many popular ones, such as Sweetie 16 by GrafxKid, and the four-color Ice Cream GB, Rustic GB and Mist GB by Kerrie Lake, with downloads in formats like .HEX, .GPL (GIMP) and .ASE (Adobe). Starting from one and swapping two or three colors is a fast way to make something your own. Credit the original creator when you share work made with their palette.
Hardware palettes are another source. Game Boy palette hex codes covers the four-shade greens and variants, and the PICO-8 color palette covers one of the most popular 16-color sets.
How to test a custom palette on your photos #
The quickest test is to run real photos through it. Pixelize has a Palette Studio for exactly this, free on iPhone and Android:
- On the home screen, tap Palette Studio, then New Palette.
- Give it a name (up to 28 characters).
- Tap a swatch and type a 6-digit hex code, or tap one of the suggested colors. Use Add and Remove to change the number of colors. A palette needs at least 2.
- Tap Save Palette.
- Open a photo. On the Color tab, your palette appears next to the built-in ones, marked with a star.
- Flip between dithering modes and use Compare to see how the palette handles skin, shadows and background.
You can save as many palettes as you like, edit or delete them later, and they’re stored on your phone, not in an account. A good test set is three photos: a portrait, an outdoor scene and something colorful.
Common palette mistakes #
- Too many near-identical colors. Two greens that are almost the same waste a slot and make shading muddy.
- No real dark. Without a deep shadow color, images look washed out and outlines disappear.
- Everything saturated. Fully saturated ramps look garish. Keep mid-tones and shadows a little muted and save saturation for accents.
- No mid-tones for skin. Faces need at least three warm steps, or they turn blotchy.
- Only pure black and white as extremes. It works, but it’s the least flavorful choice.
Quick hex refresher #
A hex color like #ff5d9e is three pairs of base-16 digits for red, green and blue, each from 00 (none) to ff (full). So #ff0000 is pure red, #000000 is black and #ffffff is white. Most tools, including Palette Studio, expect the 6-digit form.
Frequently asked questions #
What is the best number of colors for a pixel art palette? #
For most games and photo conversions, 8 to 16. Fewer colors (2 to 4) give a strong, stylized look. More than 32 starts to lose the pixel-art feel.
Should a pixel art palette include pure black? #
It doesn’t have to. Many artists prefer a very dark, slightly colored tone, like deep purple or navy, because it looks richer than #000000. Pure black works well for high-contrast, graphic styles.
What is hue shifting in pixel art? #
Changing the hue, not just the brightness, as a ramp goes from dark to light. Typically shadows lean cooler (blue or purple) and highlights warmer (yellow or orange), which makes shading look more natural and lively.
Where can I find pixel art palettes? #
Lospec’s palette list is the biggest collection, with thousands of community and hardware palettes and downloads for common editors. Hardware palettes like the Game Boy, NES and PICO-8 are also widely documented.
Can I use someone else’s palette? #
Most palette creators share their palettes for others to use. Check the creator’s notes, and credit them when you publish work made with their palette.