About the HEX to Colortone Converter
Six hexadecimal digits are unambiguous and completely unmemorable. Nobody discusses #E2725B in a design review; they say terracotta and everyone pictures roughly the right thing. This page takes the codes out of your stylesheet or design file and reports the closest entry from a library of 131 named tones drawn from pigment, textile and interior colour vocabulary, so each code arrives with a label you can actually say out loud.
Closeness is measured in CIE Lab, not by comparing the raw red, green and blue numbers. That distinction matters because RGB distance treats a small shift in a dark blue as equal to the same shift in a bright yellow, while the eye does not. Every result carries its delta E, which is the Lab distance between your code and the named tone. Under 2 is close enough that most people cannot see the gap; between 2 and 10 the name is a fair description; beyond that the library has nothing nearby and the label is only an approximation.
Three, four, six and eight digit codes are all accepted, with or without the leading hash, and an alpha channel is ignored because tone names carry no transparency. Put one code on each line to run through a whole palette in a single pass. To go the other way and turn a name into a code, use Colortone to HEX, and if you need a printable spot reference rather than a descriptive name, try HEX to Pantone.
How to use
- Paste your HEX codes into the input pane, one code per line.
- Press Match to see each code beside the tone that comes closest.
- Read the delta E figure to judge how honest the name is.
- Copy the list of names into your design notes or brief.
Common questions
- What exactly is a colortone here?
- It is a named colour from a library of 131 common pigment, textile and design names, each stored with its conventional sRGB value.
- Why not just use the CSS colour names?
- The CSS list is a historical accident with gaps in the earth tones and muted shades, so a tone library describes real-world colours far better.
- What counts as a good delta E?
- Below 2 the two colours look identical to most people, and above 10 the name is a loose label rather than a match.
- Does a shorthand code such as #1fc work?
- Yes, three and four digit codes are expanded to their full form before matching.