XunSe – Chinese Color Camera

XunSe (寻色, "seeking color") is a camera built around zhōngguó chuántǒng sè, China's traditional colors. It turns 384 historic colors into live filters and a color identifier, so every photo carries an Eastern palette.

LIVE TRADITIONAL-COLOR FILTERS You see the style while you frame the shot, so what you capture is already finished. The first card is always Original (原片), so true color is one tap away. • Palace Red Wall (故宫红墙): vermilion walls and golden tiles • A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains (千里江山): blue-green landscape painting • Dunhuang Mural (敦煌壁画): ochre and mineral blue from ancient cave murals • Ink Wash (水墨): five shades of ink, with white space as light • Ru Ware Celadon, Jiangnan Mist, Peach Blossom, Autumn Persimmon, Silk Road, Shanghai Calendar Girl, Cyber Guochao and more • Solar Term (节气): a seasonal palette generated from today's solar term, with 16 colors for each of the 24 terms

SHOOT FIRST, RESTYLE LATER Change the style after you shoot. The editor lists the original first, lets you swipe between styles and adjust strength, and shows the original while you press and hold. You can also import photos and videos from your library.

STYLED VIDEO Record video with the style applied live, up to 60 seconds per clip. Great for hanfu shoots, street snaps and travel clips.

TAP TO NAME A COLOR In Pick mode, aim the crosshair at anything. XunSe names the closest of 384 traditional colors and shows the Chinese name, pinyin, HEX, RGB, HSV and CMYK. Tap any value to copy it, or save the color to My Swatches.

PALETTE & COLOR CARD XunSe finds the traditional colors used in a photo and shows how much of each it contains. With one tap it turns them into a shareable color card (色笺) poster.

SAVE TO PHOTOS Photos, videos and color cards are saved straight to your photo library.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN • All processing happens on your iPhone, and nothing is uploaded • No account, no ads, no analytics, no tracking, and no data collected • Works fully offline • One-time purchase with no subscriptions and no in-app purchases

Note: the app interface is in Simplified Chinese.

Color names and values come from an open dataset (Apache License 2.0) transcribed from "Chinese Traditional Colors: Color Aesthetics of the Forbidden City" by Guo Hao. Filter names describe color moods only. XunSe is not affiliated with the Palace Museum, the Dunhuang Academy or any other institution.

Feedback: tanghongdi@hotmail.com

Discovery signals