After Effects

Color palettes in After Effects: swatches, gradients and contrast checks in one panel

Updated 2026-10-31 · by the mouzeclick team · Also in Español, Português (Brasil), Bahasa Indonesia

After Effects has no swatches panel, so color palettes usually live in a note of hex codes or a precomp of solids. Color desk in the mouzeclick workspace puts 31 SaaS palettes, 39 trending palettes, 66 gradients and 99 marketing solids a click from the selected layer, with animated gradient backgrounds, a contrast checker and a color-blindness preview. It runs on Windows.

31 four-color SaaS palettes, 39 five-color trending palettes, 66 named gradients, 99 marketing solids and 23 named warm tones
Click a swatch to apply it to the selected layers; Shift-click to edit it
Gradient bars, your own 2- and 4-color gradients, and animated gradient backgrounds with real keyframes
A contrast checker for the AA and AAA levels, and a color-blindness preview for four types
Color desk is in the Windows workspace; the mouzmic gradient extension runs on Windows and Mac

How do you use color palettes in After Effects?

Out of the box you keep them yourself, because After Effects has no swatches panel like Illustrator's or Photoshop's. Editors get by in three ways.

Hex codes in a note, pasted into the color picker every time. Works, but nothing stops a typo.
A palette precomp of solids you sample with the eyedropper. Visual, but the eyedropper picks up whatever sits on top.
A controller null. Add Effect › Expression Controls › Color Control to a null once per brand color, then pickwhip each layer's fill to it. Change one control and the whole video recolors.

The third is the one I'd use for any brand you'll touch again, and it pairs well with the expressions library. For everything else, picking from a ready palette is faster than building one, which is what Color desk is for.

Which color palettes are in the After Effects Color desk?

Five sets, every swatch a click away from the selected layers. Color desk sits in the mouzeclick workspace for After Effects.

Set	Count	Colors each	Good for
SaaS palettes	31	4	Product promos, interface cards, clean explainers
Trending palettes	39	5	Social edits, title cards, thumbnails
Named gradients	66	2	Backgrounds, text fills, buttons
Marketing solids	99	1	One accent color for a lower third or a call to action
Warm tones	23	1	Earthy, lifestyle and food work

Click a swatch to apply it to the selected layers. Shift-click a swatch to change it. One button turns a whole palette into a four-color gradient on the layer. The Premiere Pro workspace has its own Color desk with 19 SaaS palettes, 39 trending, 66 gradients and 72 marketing solids.

The SaaS palettes pair naturally with the UI animation templates. Pick the palette first, then build the cards, and every card starts on the same four colors.

How do you add a gradient in After Effects?

Natively, with an effect or a shape fill. Effect › Generate › Gradient Ramp gives a linear or radial blend of two colors; Effect › Generate › 4-Color Gradient blends four points; and on a shape layer, Add › Gradient Fill puts the gradient inside the shape itself. All three are fine. The slow part is choosing colors that work together, then typing them in again on the next comp.

Color desk shortens that part.

Gradient bars apply a ramp from top to bottom; Alt-click applies a four-color gradient instead.
Your own solids and two- or four-color gradients save as swatches.
Save four-color gradient captures the gradient on the selected layer as a swatch, so a look you tuned by hand isn't lost.

With four colors, keep two neighbours on the color wheel, one darker shade and one accent. Four saturated hues fighting each other is the fastest way to make a gradient look cheap.

How do you make an animated gradient background in After Effects?

Click a palette in Color desk's Anim mode and it builds a background layer with an animated four-color gradient, using real keyframes you can retime. There are 31 palettes to start from, or use your own colors.

By hand, put 4-Color Gradient on a solid and keyframe the four points slowly across ten seconds or so, or give each point a gentle wiggle expression such as wiggle(0.2, 200). It looks good; it just takes a while to tune so the points don't bunch up.

For gradients on the type and shapes themselves, use mouzmic, an extension that paints the gradient with After Effects' own Calculations, Glow and Noise effects, so the text stays live and editable. It has 14 built-in palettes or your own five colors, five gradient types (linear, radial, conic, diamond, reflected) and loops up to 20 seconds, at most 900 frames, painted frame by frame. Keep loops short, as they're heavier than a plain effect. mouzmic runs on Windows and Mac and is on the extensions page.

How do you check color contrast in After Effects?

Use Color desk's contrast checker. It gives the contrast ratio between two colors, shows whether it passes AA and AAA, and applies the foreground color when you're happy. There's no contrast checker built into After Effects.

The thresholds come from the web accessibility guidelines (WCAG): level AA asks for at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text; level AAA asks for 7:1 and 4.5:1. They were written for web pages, but they're the best yardstick for on-screen text too.

Video adds one problem the web doesn't have: the background moves. Check your text color against the brightest frame behind it, not the average. If a caption sits over a sky one second and a black jacket the next, give it a box or a stroke. The caption looks in our After Effects auto captions guide include a simple background style for exactly that.

How do you preview colors for color-blind viewers in After Effects?

Color desk previews your colors as seen with four types of color-vision difference: protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia and achromatopsia (no color at all). You can apply the simulated colors to see the comp that way, then undo.

What the preview usually catches is a chart. A red line and a green line that look obvious to you can merge into one muddy brown for many viewers. The fix is rarely a new palette. Make the two colors differ in lightness, and label the lines directly instead of relying on a legend. The achromatopsia view is a quick lightness test for any design. If it still reads in grey, it reads.

Can you generate random color palettes in After Effects?

Yes. Random colors picks a random solid or gradient; reroll until you like one, then apply it. A palette generator (beta) takes a mood word such as "calm" or "retro" and returns a five-color palette, using an online search when one is available and a built-in generator otherwise.

Random is for getting unstuck at 1 a.m., not for a brand. Once a reroll lands, save it as your own swatch so the next comp in the project uses the same colors.

What do other After Effects panels offer for color palettes?

The toolkit panel we checked, Motion Tools Pro from Motion Design School, stores palettes in a widget. It sits alongside more than 30 scripts, costs $40 paid once, and runs in After Effects 2022 and newer (version 2.1.2, 18 June 2026; checked 31 October 2026). If you want a cheap, permanent palette store and you like adding your own scripts, it's a sensible buy.

Color desk is one section of a larger workspace, with ready palettes, gradients, animated backgrounds, a contrast check and the color-blindness preview, alongside the rest of the all-in-one After Effects extension. It comes in the one mouzeclick plan at $25 a month, $249 a year or $499 lifetime, with a 3-day trial and no card (pricing).

Does Color desk work on Mac?

No. Color desk is part of the mouzeclick workspace, which is part of mouzeclick on Windows; the Mac app does not include it. The mouzmic gradient extension and the mouzegrade grading panel run on Windows and Mac. The Mac page has the full list.

Put your brand palette a click away in After Effects. One plan with everything included, $25 a month, or $249 for a year.

See the price

Questions people ask

Can I save my brand colors in After Effects?

Yes. In Color desk, save your brand's solids and two- or four-color gradients as your own swatches, and Shift-click any swatch to adjust it. Without a panel, a null with one Color Control effect per brand color, pickwhipped to each layer's fill, does the same job.

Is there a Color desk in Premiere Pro?

Yes. The mouzeclick workspace for Premiere Pro has its own Color desk with 19 SaaS palettes, 39 trending palettes, 66 gradients and 72 marketing solids. Like the After Effects workspace, it runs on Windows only, and it opens from Window › Extensions › mouzeclick workspace.

What contrast ratio should caption text have?

Aim for at least 4.5:1, the WCAG AA level for normal text, measured against the brightest part of the footage behind it. Large text can pass AA at 3:1. If the background changes a lot during the shot, a box or stroke behind the words is the reliable fix.

Why do my red and green chart lines look the same to some viewers?

Because red and green can sit at a similar lightness, and with red-green color-vision differences they collapse into one hue. Preview the chart in protanopia and deuteranopia, push one line lighter or darker, and label the lines directly rather than relying on a color key.

Can I animate a gradient on text without precomposing it?

Yes, with mouzmic. It applies the gradient to text and shape layers using After Effects' own effects, so the text stays live and editable, and a loop setting animates the gradient for up to 20 seconds. It also works on footage, solids and precomps.

How is Color desk different from mouzegrade?

Color desk is for graphics: palettes, gradients and swatches you apply to layers. mouzegrade grades footage: point-and-click color with a waveform, RGB parade, vectorscope and histogram, six built-in looks and .cube LUTs, in both After Effects and Premiere Pro, on Windows and Mac.

Can I try the color tools before paying?

Yes. mouzeclick has a 3-day free trial with no card, and it includes the After Effects tools on one computer. Color desk needs Windows; mouzmic and mouzegrade can be tried on Windows or Mac. Use the three days on a real project, not a blank comp.

Sources

Checked on 2026-10-31. Prices and features change: each link goes to the maker's own page.