Find Color Codes

Hex to HSL Converter

HSL restates a color in terms a person can reason about: what color it is, how vivid, and how light. That makes it the format to use when you want to change a color rather than just record it.

The live converter needs JavaScript. The formula and the worked example below do not. They are plain HTML and will get you the same answer by hand.

How the conversion works

Normalise the RGB channels to 0–1, then find the maximum and minimum of the three.

Lightness is the midpoint of those two. Saturation is their difference, divided by either their sum or by 2 minus their sum, depending on which side of 50% lightness you are on. Hue comes from which channel is the maximum, and by how much the other two differ.

Other converters

Hex → RGB RGB → Hex HSL → Hex RGB → HSL Hex → HSV Hex → CMYK RGB → CMYK CMYK → RGB Hex → RGBA Hex → Pantone All formats at once →