Free color resource · By My Best Colors
How to take a color analysis photo
A clear, evenly lit selfie gives online color analysis a more useful starting point. Here is how to prepare, what to avoid and when to retake your photo.
Face a window, with the light in front.
Stand or sit facing a window in indirect daylight. Look for even illumination across both cheeks, with your eyes and visible hair clearly shown. Move out of a direct sunbeam if it creates bright patches or a hard shadow across your face.
Turn off nearby warm lamps when possible. Mixing window light with a yellow bathroom light makes colors harder to compare. A strongly colored wall, curtain or top can also reflect its color onto your skin; a plain, neutral setting is easier to work with.
Illustrative examples. These images are not customer analyses.
Clear headshots in natural light are also the starting point in Colorwise’s own photo-analysis instructions. Good lighting helps reveal visible color information; it does not make a phone camera a calibrated color instrument.
A simple selfie checklist.
- Clean the camera lens. Smudges can soften detail and create haze. Use the regular camera mode with beauty effects, color filters and face retouching off.
- Keep your face unobstructed. Remove sunglasses and, if comfortable, glasses that hide your eyes or reflect the window. Move hair away from your cheeks.
- Keep makeup minimal. Bare skin is useful when comfortable. Foundation, bronzer, blush and strong lip color can change the visible color relationships. Do not use editing tools to simulate removing makeup.
- Use a plain neutral top. A simple gray or other quiet neutral reduces competing color near the face. You do not need to buy a special drape.
- Frame one person, facing forward. Hold the camera near eye level and include your whole face and visible hair. Avoid a distant full-body shot or a crop that removes your forehead and chin.
- Review the original. Check for blur, heavy shadows and washed-out areas. Keep natural texture and color; do not brighten, warm or “improve” the photo before uploading.
If you dye your hair, keep the photo honest and tell us about natural versus dyed hair where the questionnaire asks. A camera image alone cannot verify whether a hair color is natural. Gray hair and little or no visible hair are not reasons to invent a different appearance.
Fix the setup before changing the image.
My face is dark and the background is bright.
The window is probably behind you. Turn around so the light reaches your face, then take a new photo. Increasing brightness on a backlit image cannot recover all the missing detail.
My skin looks yellow, blue or unusually pale.
Check for colored lighting, a tinted filter or overexposure. Try a different position in indirect daylight and let the camera settle. Avoid using a color-editing slider to guess your “real” skin tone.
Only one cheek is clear.
Face the window more directly. If the light remains harsh, move away from the sunbeam or choose a window with softer light. Retake with the same framing.
Choose an original JPG, PNG or WebP.
My Best Colors lets you take a selfie in the browser or choose an existing photo. Review the selected image before continuing. The upload accepts JPG, PNG and WebP; export an iPhone HEIC image as a JPG if needed. Use the original photo rather than a screenshot of a social-media post, which may already have been filtered or compressed.
Your photo is temporarily encrypted and stored for processing, sent to Anthropic for analysis, and removed from active processing storage afterward. You can delete your analysis from its results page. Read the privacy policy for the full details before uploading.
Why do different photos suggest different seasons?
Automatic exposure and white balance can change the lightness and apparent warmth of a photo. Different lighting, makeup or camera processing can also change which features appear most prominent. AI interpretation adds uncertainty even when the image is usable.
If results vary, compare the input photos and the explanation before accepting a new season label. Use the most evenly lit, unfiltered image as your starting point and compare real fabrics in daylight. The goal is a useful set of colors to try, not repeating uploads until one returns a preferred answer.
Read how seasonal color analysis works to understand the qualities behind a label, then use the daylight and outfit examples to try the suggestions in everyday life.