Find Traditional Japanese Colors in Your Photos

Tap or click a spot in a photo to see the traditional Japanese color name closest to the color at that spot. The sample photo “Autumn leaves” is loaded when the page opens. You can also load your own photo with “Choose a photo”.

How to use

Pick a sample photo, or load your own with “Choose a photo”. On a computer, you can also drag and drop a photo onto the photo area, or paste an image you have copied.
Tap or click in the photo. If you keep pressing and move your finger or mouse, the marker and the result move with it. A magnified view of the photo appears near the spot.
Select a color name to open its details page.
Select a name under “Most common color names in this photo” to move the marker to the spot in the photo closest to that color.

With a keyboard, select the photo and use the arrow keys to move the marker. Hold Shift to move it in larger steps.

What happens to your photo

Your photo is displayed and checked for colors only in the browser on your device. It is not sent to a server or saved. When you close the page, the photo disappears from the screen.

How the colors are found

If the long side of a photo is larger than 1,600 pixels, the photo is scaled down to 1,600 pixels on the long side.
The color at the spot is the average of a 5 × 5 pixel area centered on the point you select. The square in the magnified view shows this area.
The color at the spot and each named color are converted to CIE 1976 L*a*b* values, and the name with the smallest distance between the two colors (color difference ΔE*_ab) is shown. A smaller ΔE*_ab means the two colors are closer. This is the same calculation used for the color names shown with each color on the color scheme pages.
“Most common color names in this photo” scales the photo down to 120 pixels on the long side, finds the closest color name for each pixel, and lists the six names with the most pixels. The percentage is the share of all pixels in the photo.
Color names that share the same color code are grouped as one color. The result also shows the other names with that color code.
Color names are shown as romanized Japanese readings. Each kana of the reading is converted to Hepburn spelling, without marks for long vowels. The Japanese name and its reading are shown below the romanized name.

The colors you see depend on your screen settings. The colors in a photo depend on the light when it was taken.