How to extract colours from a logo

A logo is usually flat colour, which means extraction gives you the brand colours themselves rather than an approximation. It also means the mistakes are more obvious, so it is worth knowing where they come from.

Get the best file you can

1. An SVG or a PDF is ideal — the colours are written in the file as exact values. Open it in a text editor and you may not need a tool at all.
2. A transparent PNG is the next best thing. Palettae skips fully transparent pixels, so you get the mark's colours rather than the colours of whatever was behind it.
3. A JPG is the worst case. JPEG compression invents colour around every hard edge, which is exactly what a logo is made of.
4. A screenshot beats a JPG, because it is uncompressed.

Anti-aliasing is the usual culprit

Every diagonal and curve in a logo is drawn with a fringe of intermediate pixels blending the mark into the background. On a small logo those fringe pixels can be a real share of the image, and they will show up as a washed-out version of the brand colour sitting next to the real one.

Two fixes. Ask for fewer colours, so the clusters are wider and the fringe is absorbed into the true colour. Or use the picker and click in the middle of a solid area, well away from any edge — which is the reliable method.

For a logo, the picker usually beats the palette. You know which colours you are looking for; you just want their values.

Watch the percentages

On a logo the percentages describe the artwork, not the brand. A mark that is 80% white space will report white at 80%, which tells you nothing about the brand's hierarchy. Read the colours, ignore the proportions.

Extracted is not official

A colour you pulled off a logo image is what that file contains, which is not necessarily what the brand specifies. Files get re-saved, converted between colour profiles, and exported by people in a hurry. If you are producing work for a brand, ask for the brand guidelines and use the values in them. Extraction is for when you cannot — or for checking whether an asset you were sent is actually on-brand.