Colour Picker & Converter
Convert between HEX, RGB, HSL and CMYK, pick visually, and generate a shade ramp from any starting colour.
HSL is the one worth learning
HEX and RGB describe a colour in terms a screen understands; HSL describes it in terms a person understands. Hue is position on the colour wheel, saturation is intensity, lightness is how close to white or black it sits. That makes HSL the right format for building a palette: hold hue and saturation, vary lightness, and you get a ramp that reads as one family. Try the same in HEX and you are guessing.
CMYK is a conversion, not a translation
Screens emit light; print absorbs it. The CMYK figures here are the standard arithmetic conversion, which is fine for a rough idea and for handing a designer a starting point — but saturated screen colours, bright cyans and vivid greens especially, simply do not exist in process ink. For anything going to press, the printer's own profile is the authority, not a browser calculation.
Common questions
Why does my CMYK colour look different in print?
Screens are additive and print is subtractive, and many saturated RGB colours fall outside the CMYK gamut entirely. Use these values as a starting point and confirm against the printer's profile.
What is HSL good for?
Building consistent palettes. Keep hue and saturation fixed and vary lightness to get tints and shades that belong together.
Does the tool store my colours?
No. Everything is computed in the page and nothing is saved or sent.