Pantone's New App Will Identify the Color Palette of Your Instagrams

It’s incredibly satisfying to see real-life objects matched up with their precise Pantone colors, as we learned through graphic designer Inka Mathew’s Tiny PMS Match project last year. But you no longer need an extensive knowledge of the color authority’s catalog to figure out that your shirt is Pantone 3515 UP. The Pantone Studio app will tell you.

While it's a resource for professional designers who want to gather inspiration from the world around them, the app is also a really entertaining way to explore your Instagram feed. Give it access to your social media feeds and saved photos, and it will identify the palettes in your images.

As an example, here is the Pantone color palette of a Stockholm sunset:

When you pick a photo to analyze, colored dots appear highlighting what the app thinks is the main palette of the image. You can move them around the photo to find the exact colors in the image you're looking to explore. So you can also take a selfie and use it to identify the Pantone color of your lipstick (plus the office decor behind your head), like so:

If you really like the design of a product, like this ginger beer can, you can find out what colors it uses:

Or, you know, just figure out the color palette of your cat photos:

Whether or not you've ever cared what the exact color of the sunset you're looking at is called, it's a neat way to parse the world around you. Serious designers can pay to access the complete Pantone catalog of color values, but if you're just looking to explore, the free version works well enough.

It’s available for iOS.

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.