Provided are systems and methods to perform colour extraction from swatch images and to define new images using extracted colours. Source images may be classified using a deep learning net (e.g. a CNN) to indicate colour representation strength and drive colour extraction. A clustering classifier is trained to use feature vectors extracted by the net. Separately, pixel clustering is useful when extracting the colour. Cluster count can vary according to classification. In another manner, heuristics (with or without classification) are useful when extracting. Resultant clusters are evaluated against a set of (ordered) expected colours to determine a match. Instances of standardized swatch images may be defined from a template swatch image and respective extracted colours using image processing. The extracted colour may be presented in an augmented reality GUI such as a virtual try-on application and applied to a user image such as a selfie using image processing.