The science of color

Read color
like a colorist.

Point your camera at anything — a peony, a wall, a Tuesday sweater — and hue reads it back to you in HSL, wavelength, complement, named ancestry, and the way it looks through someone else's eyes. A camera color scanner and identifier — HEX, RGB, color names, all on-device.

iOS 15.1 or later Android 11+ Free to try

What it sees

Color analysis in six lenses.

Six lenses on a single sample — a color identifier that goes far beyond a hex code. Each one a different way of asking what is this color, really?

On the wheel

See your color's place on the color wheel, its sector name, and its complement — the color sitting exactly opposite.

Dominant wavelength

From near-ultraviolet violet to deep red, every hue has a nanometer. We mark yours on the visible spectrum.

Through other eyes

A colorblind preview: see your color the way someone with deuteranopia, protanopia, or tritanopia does. Design for everyone.

Names & ancestry

Match against a curated library of thousands of named colors, with the nearest ranked by perceptual ΔE distance.

AI essence

One poetic line that captures the feeling of a color — "the green of moss that has waited out three winters."

Palette & sharing

Save every color you capture to an unlimited color palette, revisit it any time, and share a color as its name and HEX with one tap.

How it works

Scan any color in three taps.

  1. Aim the reticle

    Hold the camera steady on what you want to read. Hue averages a small patch to ignore noise.

  2. Get a card, instantly

    The scientific card slides up. Hex, HSL, RGB, sector, complement — on-device, with no waiting.

  3. Save it, share it, name it

    Pin it to a palette. Export it. Ask AI to describe its essence. It's yours to keep.

See it in action

The color identifier, screen by screen.

Hue Pro

HEX, RGB, HSL and the science behind them.

Free hue gets you the color, the name, and the closest cousins. Pro unlocks the entire instrument panel — the parts a colorist actually uses.

  • Hue wheel with complement & sector
  • Dominant wavelength on the visible spectrum
  • Colorblind simulation (deutan · protan · tritan)
  • Nearest named colors with ΔE distance
  • AI essence & "in the world" associations
  • HSL & RGB channel breakdown
Try Pro free for 5 days

Common questions

Color scanner questions, answered.

Is hue free?

Yes. The core camera-to-color reader, named matches, and saved palettes are free forever. Pro is a small optional subscription that unlocks the full scientific card and AI descriptions.

Does it work offline?

Color reading and the entire scientific card run on-device. The only thing that needs a network is the AI essence — everything else works in airplane mode.

How accurate is the camera reading?

We sample a calibrated patch (not a single pixel) and correct for white balance using the surrounding scene. For absolute color work, a hardware spectrophotometer is still the right tool, but hue is faster, free, and lives in your pocket.

Can I save and share the colors I find?

Every color you capture can be saved to an unlimited palette, and shared as its name and HEX value with one tap. Export to design-tool formats is on the roadmap, not in the app yet.

What about my privacy?

Camera frames never leave your device. Your saved palette is stored locally on the phone, with no account and no cloud sync. AI descriptions send the hex value — nothing else.

Is there an iPad / tablet version?

hue runs on Android phones and tablets today, and on iPhone via the App Store. Layouts tuned for larger screens are on the roadmap.

Start reading color

The last color picker you'll need.

Free to try. No account required. Free hue is genuinely useful; Pro is genuinely beautiful.