Scientific Color Palette Generator

A scientific color palette must satisfy three criteria: the colors must be perceptually distinct so readers can tell data series apart, they must remain distinguishable when converted to grayscale (for print), and they must be accessible to readers with color vision deficiencies. SciFig's scientific color palette generator applies all three criteria when generating your palette.

Specify that you need a colorblind-friendly or daltonic-friendly palette, state how many categories you need to distinguish, and SciFig's scientific color palette generator selects colors that remain perceptually distinct under deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia simulations. You receive hex codes for each color along with a preview of how the palette looks under each color vision deficiency type.

Nature-family journals recommend palettes that are colorblind-accessible, print-safe, and perceptually uniform. SciFig's scientific color palette generator can produce palettes aligned with these standards, providing the hex codes you need to reproduce the Nature journal color palette aesthetic in your own figures — verified for colorblind inclusivity including deuteranopia and protanopia.

Daltonism is the broader term for inherited color vision deficiency, affecting approximately 8% of males and 0.5% of females. A daltonic-friendly color palette — also called a colorblind-safe or colorblind-accessible palette — avoids red-green combinations that are indistinguishable to people with deuteranopia or protanopia. Using a daltonic-friendly palette for science figures ensures your data is readable by the broadest possible audience.

For categorical data in scientific figures, palettes of 4–8 colors are most effective — beyond 8 categories, readers struggle to reliably distinguish series even with optimal palettes. SciFig's scientific color palette generator will warn you if you request more colors than can be made reliably distinct, and will suggest alternative visual encodings (such as shape or pattern) for datasets with many categories.

SciFig provides hex codes for every color in your scientific palette, which you can paste directly into figure creation tools — including the SciFig figure editor, matplotlib, R ggplot2, Illustrator, or any other software that accepts hex color values. The palette entry lists colors in a recommended application order, from most to least visually prominent. When you are choosing a palette for scientific diagrams rather than data plots — pathway maps, schematics, or mechanism figures — assign the most prominent colors to the elements readers should notice first, and leave the remaining colors for supporting structures.