Sample a photograph or enter a color, then compare the closest Bullseye, Oceanside, and Wissmach glass matches by perceptual color difference.
ΔE — "delta E" — is a single number that describes how different two colors look to the human eye. It was developed by the CIE (Commission internationale de l'éclairage) to put perceived color difference on an objective scale. Smaller numbers mean the colors are closer; zero means identical.
When you click a pixel on your photograph, Palette reads that pixel's red/green/blue value and converts it to CIE Lab — a color space designed so that equal distances correspond roughly to equal perceived differences. It then measures the distance from your pick to every glass color in its active catalogs, and ranks the nearest five in each section.
The hex color used for each glass SKU is extracted automatically from the manufacturer's product photograph — center-cropped, background-masked, and averaged. Glass matches are ranked by photo-derived color, not by fired color. A fired piece will always reveal something you can't read from a thumbnail; treat the ranking as a starting point.
Palette uses CIEDE2000 (CIE standard, 2001) — the current best-practice color-difference formula. Unlike the older ΔE76 (Euclidean distance in Lab), CIEDE2000 applies lightness, chroma, and hue weighting functions, plus a chroma-rotation term that corrects for the fact that human perception of color difference is not uniform across the spectrum. The blue-green region in particular appears less different than ΔE76 would predict; CIEDE2000 accounts for that. Result: rankings are closer to how a trained colorist would order matches side by side.
Unlike paint or print, glass is a translucent material that behaves differently under back-light, reflected light, stacked layers, and in the kiln. ΔE measures one dimension of color — how your source color compares to a sample photograph of each product. Compatibility, opacity, strikers, and reactive metals (copper, sulfur) all show up in the match card's reaction dots and firing notes, but they aren't part of the ΔE score itself.
Dichroic glass is excluded from rankings. A dichroic sheet is a clear or black base with a thin metallic-oxide coating — the photograph captures the coating's sheen, not the glass underneath, so the extracted hex isn't a fair match target. Dichroic is still fully browsable under the Bullseye catalog (Form filter → Dichroic) for when you specifically want an accent piece.
Palette helps you translate a color — from a photograph, a reference catalog, or a hex value — into the closest available glass matches. It searches across the Bullseye, Oceanside, and Wissmach catalogs, ranks results by perceptual color difference (CIEDE2000), and lets you build, save, and export a working palette as a reference sheet or shopping list.
Everything happens in your browser. Photographs you upload never leave your device.
Photo picks and catalog picks live in the same palette — mix and match freely. The Reference Sheet export will show the source for each color.
No. Palette runs entirely in your browser. The photograph you drop in is read locally by the browser's canvas and never leaves your device. Nothing is sent to a server.
ΔE ("delta E") is a single number describing how different two colors look to a trained eye. Smaller is closer; zero is identical. Palette uses the modern CIEDE2000 formula. There's a full explainer on the footer link "How we rank matches — about ΔE."
They're a plain-language read on the ΔE number so you don't have to interpret it yourself: Excellent (ΔE ≤ 2) is a near-perfect color match, Close (≤ 5) is a good match, Fair (≤ 10) is in the neighborhood, and Loose (over 10) is a stretch. Glass is translucent, so always test a small piece before committing.
Each match shows the manufacturer's actual catalog photo of the glass rather than a single averaged color, because kiln glass varies a lot across a sheet — striations, density, striking. If you've narrowed the Form filter (say to Frit), the photo and its detail switch to that form. Click any photo to view it full screen and arrow through the other matches.
Glass is a translucent material — its color shifts dramatically with backlight, layering, and firing. The match score compares your source color to a photograph of the unfired sheet, which is a starting point, not a final answer. Always test with a small piece before committing a full sheet.
Hex values are extracted from each manufacturer's product photographs — center-cropped, background-masked, and averaged. Reaction notes (striker, sulfur, copper-reactive) and product forms (sheet, frit, stringer, rod) come from the manufacturers' own data sheets.
Dichroic sheets have a metallic-oxide coating; the photograph captures the coating's sheen rather than a "color," which makes ΔE matching unfair. Dichroic is still fully browsable from the Bullseye catalog under Form → Dichroic when you want an accent piece.
Yes — the layout adapts to phone screens and the loupe shrinks for finger-dragging. Phone-saved palettes live on that phone's browser only; to move a palette between devices, Download it as a .palette.json file and Import it on the other device.
Up to 25 named palettes per browser. Saving past the limit asks before it removes the oldest one. For palettes you want to keep forever, use Download — .palette.json files on your computer have no cap and survive browser-data clears.
Yes. Use the Add a Color Manually card on the right side. Switch the tab to HEX or RGB, type the value, preview the swatch, and click Add. It joins your palette just like a photo pick.
The Reference Sheet is a printable, designer-style PDF showing each color in your palette alongside its top matches and reaction notes — great for studio reference. The Shopping List is a leaner PDF organized by manufacturer with SKUs and form selections, intended to be sent to a glass supplier or carried into the studio.
Yes — click the moon/sun icon in the header. Your choice is remembered for next time.