Color Format Reference Guide

Modern web design and digital art workflows require fluency across multiple color notations. Each format encodes the same visible color through a different mathematical model.

HEX (Hexadecimal)

The most common CSS format: a hash followed by 6 hexadecimal digits representing red, green, and blue channels (e.g. #6366f1). Each pair ranges from 00 (0) to ff (255). Shorthand 3-digit forms like #fff are also valid.

RGB (Red, Green, Blue)

Defines color as three integers from 0–255. Used directly in CSS as rgb(99, 102, 241). Intuitive for mixing — adding more red, green, or blue shifts the resulting hue accordingly.

HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness)

More human-intuitive than RGB. Hue is a degree on the color wheel (0–360), Saturation is the intensity (0–100%), and Lightness ranges from black (0%) to white (100%). Supported natively in CSS as hsl(239, 84%, 67%).

HSB / HSV (Hue, Saturation, Brightness)

Similar to HSL but replaces Lightness with Brightness (also called Value). Widely used in design applications like Photoshop and Figma. A Brightness of 100% produces the purest form of the hue, not white as in HSL.