Colour converter

Every format at once

Which format you need is obvious the moment you see it, so all of them are shown rather than hidden behind a dropdown. Paste a hex code, an rgb(), or an hsl(), or use the picker.

HSL and HSV are not the same thing

They are routinely mislabelled as each other, and the difference is real.

Lightness in HSL is the midpoint between the largest and smallest channel. Value in HSV is simply the largest channel.

Pure red is hsl(0 100% 50%) and hsv(0 100% 100%) — the same colour, two different third numbers. In HSL, 100% lightness is always white; in HSV, 100% value is the most saturated version of the hue. Design tools mostly use HSV pickers; CSS uses HSL.

The CMYK number is not what a printer will produce

This is worth being blunt about, because most converters simply print four confident numbers.

Converting RGB to CMYK without an ICC profile is not a conversion. There is no defined relationship between these values and ink on paper — the result depends on the press, the paper, the inks and the colour management setup. The formula used here is the standard device-independent one, and it is an approximation.

Use it for a rough idea. For anything going to print, convert in software that knows the destination profile, and expect the numbers to differ.

LAB is the one that matches perception

Unlike the others, LAB is designed so that equal numerical distances look like equal visual differences. That makes it the right space for comparing two colours or interpolating between them, and the wrong space for typing values into by hand.

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Converted in this page.