Nature color palettes from sunsets, oceans and forests

A nature color palette is a set of colours taken from a real scene: the oranges and mauves of a sunset, the blues and sands of a coast, the greens and browns of a forest. These palettes work because nature rarely uses pure, fully saturated colour. Most of what you see is softened by light, distance and texture, with one brighter note, a flower, a sunlit wave, a patch of sky. Below are palettes and gradients from five kinds of scene, each with hex codes, and a method for pulling your own from a photo.

Why colours from nature work together

Two habits of natural light make these palettes easy to use. First, colours in one scene share the same light, so a warm evening tints everything slightly gold and a grey morning cools everything slightly blue. That shared tint is what ties them together, and it is why analogous colors, neighbours on the wheel, feel so natural.

Second, nature is already graded. The sky is paler near the horizon than overhead, distant hills turn bluer and lighter than near ones, and water shifts from turquoise in the shallows to deep blue offshore. That is why nature gives you gradients almost for free: copy the order the colours appear in and the blend usually looks right.

Sunset and sky color palettes

A good sunset palette runs from a cool, dark sky overhead through mauve and rose to a warm gold at the horizon. The mauve in the middle matters: it is the bridge between blue and orange that stops the blend turning grey. For more sunset blends, see our full guide to the sunset gradient.

Ocean and coast color palettes

Coastal palettes pair cool water with warm sand, which gives you a built-in contrast of temperature. Keep the blues slightly green, as sea water usually is, and the sand slightly grey, and the palette feels like a real beach rather than a travel brochure. For the pure blue end of the range, see blue gradients.

Forest and moss color palettes

Forest greens are darker, greyer and more yellow than most people pick from a colour picker. A true moss is a muted olive, not a bright lime, and a pine shadow is nearly black. Add the browns of bark and the pale grey-green of lichen and you have an earthy palette that suits food, outdoor brands, wellness and anything handmade. Green gradients covers the brighter end.

Desert, stone and winter palettes

Deserts and canyons give the warmest earthy palettes: terracotta, clay and sandstone, cooled by a dusty sage and a hazy sky. Winter and mountain scenes do the opposite: pale ice blues and slate greys, with snow as a warm-leaning white rather than pure #ffffff. Both are good choices when you want a calm, grown-up palette that is not green.

How to make a nature color palette from a photo

The best nature palette is often your own: a place that means something to your brand or your audience. Pulling one from a photo is quick if you follow a few rules, and our guide to making a color palette from an image goes deeper.

1. 1

   Pick one photo, not a collage

   One scene has one light, so its colours already agree. Mixing photos mixes lights, and the palette loses its calm.

2. 2

   Sample across the values

   Take one dark, two mid tones and two light tones. A palette of five mid tones looks pleasant as swatches and useless as a design, because nothing contrasts.

3. 3

   Sample areas, not pixels

   Pick the average of a patch of leaves or sky. Single pixels catch noise and give you colours nobody sees in the photo.

4. 4

   Choose one accent

   Find the one brighter colour, a berry, a buoy, a strip of sunset, and reserve it for the things you want people to notice.

5. 5

   Set a hierarchy

   Use the 60 30 10 rule as a start: a ground colour for most of the space, a supporting colour, and the accent for the smallest part.

In Gradiently, Match a picture does the first steps for you: drop in a landscape and it returns the photo's palette and the closest Marks, or makes new ones like it.