ColorSmith Pre-release

ColorSmith.app

It's 10 PM somewhere. Do you know how many colors your image has?

Drop in an image and find out. Everything happens locally in your browser -- no image data leaves it.

Too Many Colors

Drop an image to count how many distinct colors it contains.

Drag an image here PNG, GIF, JPG, WEBP or click to browse

No image loaded

Every example below ran through the same one-click automatic pass shown above — no manual touch-up tools, no cherry-picked settings.

Original photo of a macaw in flight, full detail The same macaw photo automatically reduced to 43 colors by ColorSmith
425,808 → 43 colors
Automatic — no edits
Original photo of a bunch of grapes, full detail The same grapes photo automatically reduced to 34 colors by ColorSmith
527,599 → 34 colors
Automatic — no edits
Original photo of the site's creator, full detail The same photo automatically reduced to 65 colors by ColorSmith, plus one optional Gradient Refine touch-up
126,529 → 65 colors
Automatic + one optional touch-up

A real photo — automatic result plus one optional Gradient Refine.

Original black and white portrait photo, full detail The same black and white photo automatically reduced to 31 colors by ColorSmith
256 → 31 colors
Automatic — no edits
Original photo of a dog, full detail The same dog photo automatically reduced to 40 colors by ColorSmith
490,911 → 40 colors
Automatic — no edits

So what's the catch?

Some images really do need more colors.

Large smooth skies, fog, studio backgrounds, and long skin-tone gradients push hardest against any color count — aggressive automatic reduction can show up as visible banding across those smooth areas. That's exactly what one click can't always catch on its own.

Most tools' only answer is a bigger number. ColorSmith has a whole suite of tools for adjusting the automatic result — spending colors exactly where they matter.

Show error → fix

When automatic isn't enough, that's where ColorSmith sets itself apart — here's what its manual tools do about it.

Swipe right to see the repairDrag the divider right to watch the repair happen

Automatic ColorSmith result on a portrait, showing visible color banding across the skin The same result after using Refine Gradient to smooth out the skin banding
36 → 51 colors

Fixed with Refine Gradient — banding on skin.

Swipe right to see the repairDrag the divider right to watch the repair happen

Automatic ColorSmith result on a snake's eye, showing muddy, flattened color The same result after using Recover Color Range to restore the gold in the eye
33 → 38 colors

Fixed with Recover Color Range — muddy eyes → gold.

Swipe right to see the repairDrag the divider right to watch the repair happen

Automatic ColorSmith result on a portrait in a quilted garment, before color/skin correction The same result after using Change Color and Preserve to hold the skin tone and keep the face achromatic
56 → 64 colors

Fixed with Change Color + Preserve — skin tone + achromatic face.

Historic photos: Library of Congress, Free to Use and Reuse.

Built by the creator of HueForge.

ColorSmith is coming first to HueForge as a free plugin.

The HueForge desktop application with the ColorSmith plugin tab open, showing palette and swatch editing tools alongside a 3D print preview.

The free plugin includes ColorSmith's full suite of refinement tools — tweak, repair, and perfect the result inside HueForge. You're never limited to the automatic pass.