About the HSV to Pantone Converter
Picking a colour on sliders is a screen activity; specifying it for a printer is not. When a brand colour has to survive being stamped on packaging, stitched into a garment or run through an offset press, a spot reference is what the supplier wants. This page reads HSV or HSB values, converts them to sRGB, and reports the closest reference from a table of Solid Coated approximations along with the delta E of the match.
The matching runs in CIE Lab, which is the right space for the question because it measures how different two colours look rather than how different their numbers are. A delta E under 2 is a match you can specify with confidence, and one above 5 means the table holds nothing genuinely close and you should look at the physical guide before committing. The table is a curated subset, not the full library, so a missing near neighbour is a real possibility.
These are screen approximations and not a licensed colour library. No monitor value can stand in for a printed chip, because a real ink has a spectral curve and a substrate underneath it. Always confirm against a current physical guide before signing off artwork. The reverse lookup is Pantone to HSV, and if your source colour is a stylesheet value rather than slider positions, HEX to Pantone saves a step.
How to use
- Enter HSV or HSB triples, one colour on each line.
- Press Match to see your colour beside the nearest reference.
- Read the delta E to judge how safe the match is.
- Confirm the shortlisted reference against a physical guide.
Common questions
- How reliable is a screen based Pantone match?
- It narrows the shortlist, but only a printed guide under controlled lighting can settle the final choice.
- Which part of the Pantone range is covered?
- A curated subset of the Solid Coated range, including the process and grey families, is used for matching.
- What delta E should I aim for?
- Under 2 is a confident match and anything past 5 deserves a look at the physical guide first.
- Can I paste HSB values from a design tool?
- Yes, HSB and HSV are the same three numbers, so they can be pasted without any change.