How to pick a website color scheme (without copying a Dribbble shot)
You need a primary, neutrals, semantic colors, and the discipline to stop at five roles — not fifteen pretty swatches.
A website color scheme is a small set of decisions repeated everywhere: background, text, accent, borders, success/warning/error. Everything else is decoration.
Step 1: one anchor
Brand hex, extracted photo color, or a wheel exploration in the color picker. Stop when it feels right on white — you will tune dark mode later.
Step 2: neutrals and semantic
Grow ramps in the palette generator. Pick calm success/error hues that are not your brand purple. See neutral grays for backgrounds that do not look flat.
Step 3: verify and export
Run text pairs through the contrast checker. Export CSS variables, Tailwind config, or Android XML from the same numbers. Steal structure from references like Material Design if you need step spacing, not necessarily their hues.
Step 4: steal from a site you like (carefully)
The palette from URL tool pulls theme-color and inline hex from public pages — inspiration only, not trademark colors for production.