Color Picker

About this color picker

Use this color picker to choose a screen color visually and obtain the values needed for web design or graphics software. Click the color control to open your browser's native picker. The initial orange is #ff8800, equivalent to RGB 255, 136, 0 and HSL 32, 100 percent, 50 percent.

The table shows seven notations together. HEX and RGB describe channels directly; HSL separates hue, saturation and lightness; HSV replaces lightness with brightness or value. HSV is useful in illustration programs but is not a CSS function. Choose the copy format to get one result without copying the entire table.

Opacity is controlled separately because the native color input selects an opaque RGB color. Enter zero for complete transparency, one for full opacity, or a fraction such as 0.5. HEXA, RGBA and HSLA include that opacity, while HEX, RGB, HSL and HSV omit it. The checkerboard shows transparency without assuming a particular background color.

Hexadecimal alpha is stored last, in #RRGGBBAA order. A decimal alpha of 0.5 becomes byte 80, which represents 128/255 rather than exactly one half. Color coordinates round only for display. This picker uses standard sRGB values and cannot calibrate your monitor or produce print color profiles. All selection and conversion happen locally without uploading colors.

Which controls should I check first?

The Color Picker form labels its controls as Choose a color; Opacity (0–1); Copy format; Result. Its selectable values include HEX; HEXA; RGB; RGBA; HSL; HSLA; HSV. Use those labels to keep the source and settings separate. A sample argument that selects a mode is not additional source text. Choose the setting matching your intended operation before copying a result, and change it explicitly when comparing another mode. The labels describe what this form accepts; the worked examples below demonstrate only the stated supplied values.

Worked helper values

These values come from the reproducible calculation examples supplied with this tool. Each row identifies the complete supplied arguments and the returned value. A visible ↵ denotes a line break and ⇥ denotes a tab in text examples. Settings appear alongside source data so that a different mode is not mistaken for an identical input. These are helper calculations, not observations of a live device, fetched target, image decoder, browser preview or downloaded file. Use the stated method above to relate the returned fields to the actual operation.

Why can the coordinates look different?

The conversion goes through red, green and blue channels, which describe the same underlying color as the source notation. Hue-based coordinates reorganize those channels into an angle and two proportions. In HSL the third coordinate is lightness, whereas in HSV it is the maximum channel or value. Their saturation coordinates also use different denominators. Copying the same three numbers between the two names changes the color. Compare the result numerically with the worked values, then preview it against the background where it will actually be used.

What does opacity change?

Alpha describes coverage or opacity separately from the color channels. An alpha of zero can hide a bright blue color without turning its stored blue channel into zero. Dropping that alpha reveals the underlying blue as opaque; it does not composite the invisible color onto white. When an alpha-capable source is converted to an opaque destination, decide whether discarding opacity matches your intended use. If you want the visible blended color instead, a background and a compositing operation are required. Changing lightness is a different edit from changing opacity.

How do I preserve useful precision?

HEX and RGB output use integer channel values from zero through 255. Hue-based output keeps three decimal places, and decimal alpha keeps up to six. A hexadecimal opacity byte has only 256 possible values: 0.5 rounds to 128, whose decoded proportion is 128 divided by 255. A round trip can therefore differ slightly from the original fraction. Keep a high-precision source while editing and format it only for the final destination. Repeatedly converting already rounded output can accumulate small differences that a preview alone may not reveal.

Why are grayscale hue values special?

When all three RGB channels are equal, there is no distinct hue. The converter reports hue zero for that neutral case so that the output remains a complete tuple. This zero is a convention for an undefined coordinate, not evidence that a gray color contains visible red. Black can also have undefined saturation in intermediate formulas; the implementation handles those zero denominators explicitly. Testing black alongside a saturated example catches these boundary cases better than testing only a colorful swatch. Gray remains gray when you change its otherwise undefined hue without adding saturation.