A computer-aided color planning system transforming an image with natural colors into product design is addressed in this study. By using analogies to natural color patterns for the solutions in product color planning, a natural color planning system is developed. The system assists the designer to obtain optimized natural colors easily for product color planning or takes the color planning of similar products by means of designers-preferred natural colors. In terms of the product color planning design, this system converts the descriptive design processes into systematic design model by three modules: (1) natural coloring module, (2) fuzzy recognition module, and (3) image evaluation module. A case study based on applying the colors of Taiwanese butterflies to the color planning of volleyball shoes was presented to verify the feasibility of this system. (c) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 612-625, 2015