DEV Community: Shinesfox

Free Image Color Palette Generator with Contrast Checker & Live UI Preview

Shinesfox — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 23:12:43 +0000

Hello, I was creating some UI/UX elements for my website, and this forced me to use a web tool to generate palettes. Then I found so many great Online Color Palette tools on the internet, and they did pretty well helping me.
After testing almost 10+ web tools, I found they were missing some important features for modern design workflows.

What Was Missing in Other Color Palette Tools?

Most tools on the web completely rely on simple color extraction and export options. However, designing for the web requires more. Specifically, I needed:

Accessibility Checks: As you may know, we should always take care of Background, foreground, or text colors so they provide a better contrast ratio for users on the website to ensure readability. So I added an intelligent contrast checker which smartly keeps checking contrast ratio based on the type of colors and color range.
Contextual Visualization: Also, I was looking for a live preview that helps me visualize my generated palettes in a Live card or some UI to analyze and decide which is the best color for background, text, or button, etc.

Introducing Shinesfox: A Complete Image Color Palette Maker

This whole scenario motivated me to build an advanced, modern Online Image color palette generator that helps users to get the job done in one place.

So I’m really excited to introduce you to Shinesfox Image Color Palette Generator, which I published after a lot of testing from all angles, users, and developers.

I made sure to build it in a way that includes all the important features and performance-related optimizations that a modern web tool must have, like responsiveness and smooth interactions.

Key Features of the Online Image Color Picker

Flexible Upload Options
I added 2 upload Image options to it. You can start from your phone or computer, or paste an Image URL.

2–10 color extraction (dominant colors)
Different users have different needs, so you can select from 2 to 10 color swatches according to your needs.
Draggable on-image color bubbles (color picker) & one-click copy HEX code
The best part, which I personally liked the most, is its grabbing and dragging a color circle feature on the Image. I hope you’ll also like it, especially when you want to get the HEX for a specific part on your image — it’s so easy.

High-precision magnifier for pixel-level sampling

When you grab a color bubble in the image, a zoomed magnifier appears, which shows exact pixels under the sampler, so you get hyper-accurate HEX values every time. I ensured it’s fully responsive and optimized, such as the zoomed image preview inside the draggable color circle is correct in desktop and mobile view, and while dragging interactions are as smooth as possible.

Contrast checker (accessibility-aware)
This is the feature I’m talking about that all existing web tools ignored for production-level workflows for free users. So I added it and made it smart, so it intelligently calculates the number of colors (e.g., from 2–10) and then intelligently calculates the contrast ratio.
It helps Designers meet accessibility goals and avoid unreadable color combinations. (WCAG guidance used for checks).

Live UI Preview (real-world mockups)

Again, this was another yet important feature that all other existing online image color palette tools lacked. I created different elements such as top hero text, hero section, profile cards, buttons, and separate cards in it.
It also smartly adopts the number of colors and then previews them in all of its sections to evaluate how your color palette will look on real production designs.

Gradient Studio (Generate Gradient Colors)

In design projects, we sometimes need extra help when we get stuck and can’t find the right look for our components or layouts. So as an additional feature, I added Gradient Studio. It smartly picks your final color palette based on the selected color count and generates six different gradient types (linear, radial, conic, repeating linear, repeating radial, and diagonal) that you can customize and use in your designs, such as backgrounds or small elements.
You can open it from the main control section at the top, and it has its own export options to download the gradients after customization.

AI Color Palette Generator (text → palette)

As the modern world is moving to AI for easier workflows, I also built another tool, which is the AI Color Palette Generator, and it also has all these features plus some more features, such as further customizing any Color swatch with a built-in color picker.
This lets you write prompts, text, or design to generate color palettes, but I recommend always editing/customizing them for production usage.

Multiple export formats for designers & devs
As I have worked as a developer, I know dev formats are also very important beyond just simple export options. My tool comes with several such as CSS, SCSS, JSON, JS, Tailwind config, Adobe .ase, and SVG.
In future updates, I’ll definitely add more export options to it and even the feature to save your palettes locally or even in the cloud.

Mobile-optimized UI and separate touch controls
When using this online image color picker, I found many tools were lacking in providing the best user view, ensuring a good user experience with this tool, which was critical.
When we grab a color circle and then try to move it, the view is entirely blocked by our thumb or finger, so for touch devices I ensured a separate dedicated mobile picker and larger touch targets to make sampling and dragging easy on phones and tablets.

Free & no sign-up, fast interactions
When exploring all these web tools, I noticed that accessing advanced features such as contrast ratio checking or saving palettes requires a premium version. To make this tool a true all-in-one solution, I unlocked all features 100% free with no sign-up, no purchase. Just open it and use it for your tasks.

Conclusion

Complete web tools improve productivity, and this is what I aimed to achieve with this free online image palette generator. Now it’s your turn to test it and then let me know your thoughts about it. Thanks for staying with me till now.

Top 10 VEGAS Pro AI Plugins to Enhance Your Workflow

Shinesfox — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 19:01:01 +0000

You may have something in your mind about editing in the age of AI? so that's why we’ve compiled a list of the first top ten AI VEGAS Pro plugins. Along with the new features in VEGAS Pro 21, AI add-ons add extra functionality providing a more efficient and faster workflow.
Here are the top ten AI plugins for VEGAS Pro that you need to have in your toolkit.

SilhouetteFX
AI-Enhanced Z-Depth
Boris FX Mocha Pro
AI Style Transfer
Colorization AI Effect
Neat Video
AI-Driven Upscale
Smart Mask
Text-to-Speech
Speech-to-Text

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence has become a major part of the rapidly changing AI tool market as these AI-powered tools can transform the video editing process to new heights. In this read, we’ve reviewed the ten best plugins for VEGAS Pro and tried to know how these intelligent tools can revolutionize the workflow experience.

What is the new AI in VEGAS Pro?

MAGIX introduces new AI-powered tools with advanced machine-learning techniques and algorithms in VEGAS Pro 21. The best AI VEGAS Pro plugins include AI-Enhanced Z-Depth, AI Style Transfer, SilhouetteFX, Colorization AI Effect, AI-Driven Upscale, Smart Mask, Text-to-Speech, and Speech-to-Text.

14+ Best Photoshop AI-Powered Plugins - (Half are Free)

Shinesfox — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 15:28:32 +0000

Existing photo editing tools can and are using AI in several ways, and an AI image generator is one of them. If you're a big fan of AI tools like me and in search of making your work easier through AI while keeping in touch with your preferred editing tool, then your wait is over. We analyzed a list of the best AI plugins for Photoshop.

Best Photoshop AI Plugins that you should know about

This list of AI Photoshop plugins will help you with a variety of needs, including:

Retouching
Blending
Composition
Color correction
Texturing
3D
And more

Download free plugins + find more resources: The Ultimate List of 15 Best Photoshop AI-Powered Plugins
Photoshop is a versatile tool that can be used for several productivity tasks. Here are some of the best AI Plugins for Photoshop in 2023.

Generative Fill
Topaz Labs AI Suite
Luminar AI
Stable Diffusion (Stability AI)
ON1 Professional Plugins
Radiant Photo (Perfectly clear)
Portraiture
ImageCreator
Attention Insight
Retouch4me
Filter Forge
Infinite Color Panel
Neural Filters
Defuser
Aurora HDR (Merge tool)

Wrapping Up 14+ Best Photoshop AI Plugins

Installing AI plugins will greatly enhance your editing experience. Once you use AI tools in Photoshop, you won't be able to go back to editing without them. They are like an addictive game.

That's it! These are our top picks for the best AI Photoshop plugins to try in 2023. Now it's your turn to tell me which plugin you liked the most and don't forget to try the free plugins provided.

Best Free YouTube 2D Animated Outro Template Download - Sony VEGAS Pro

Shinesfox — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 15:20:46 +0000

You are looking for a free outro to end your YouTube videos? well, download this YouTube animated outro template for Sony Vegas with easy customization options.

— Below are the several key features that this template offers:

Resolution: 1920x1080
Plugins: No plugins required
Additional resources: sound, font, characters, shapes, animated text, YouTube logo and video frame

Download The Best Animated Outro VEGAS Pro Template: Free YouTube 2D Animated Outro Template

If you're a content creator on YouTube, whether as an individual YouTuber or producing content for a brand, you're well aware of the importance of including an outro video to conclude your YouTube videos effectively. Using a template can bring you professional, high-quality results. So here's the 2D animated VEGAS Pro template with awesome trendy animations, and transitions effects. This template is beneficial for your YouTube outros.

What is an animated outro template?

An outro is a short video at the end of the main video. It's also known as the YouTube end-screen video that is used by businesses, vloggers, gamers, editors, and other content creators.