Color Model Converter (RGB, HSL, HSV, CMYK)

Enter a HEX color code or pick one with the color picker to instantly convert it into RGB, HSL, HSV (HSB), and CMYK values, all shown side by side.

How the color models differ

Model Description Typical use
RGB An additive color model that mixes the three primary colors of light (red, green, blue), each on a 0-255 scale. Displays, web development (CSS), and the base format used by most image editors.
HSL Represents a color using hue, saturation, and lightness. It maps more closely to how humans intuitively describe color. CSS's `hsl()` function, and adjusting hue/saturation in color-scheme tools.
HSV/HSB Represents a color using hue, saturation, and value (brightness). Similar to HSL but with a different definition of the third axis. The color pickers found in design tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
CMYK A subtractive color model that overlays four inks: cyan, magenta, yellow, and a key (black) plate. Print design and desktop publishing (DTP), where color is reproduced with ink on paper.

Tips

  • The hex field accepts codes with or without a leading `#`, and both 3-digit shorthand (e.g. `#f60`) and 6-digit forms.
  • Any color you choose with the color picker is automatically reflected in the hex field, so you can pick colors visually while checking the exact numeric values.
  • If you want to set a background or text color in CSS using the `hsl()` function, you can plug the HSL values shown here directly into `hsl(H, S%, L%)`.
  • When preparing print artwork, keep in mind that the CMYK values shown here are a simplified conversion; the actual values used by a print shop's ICC profile may differ slightly.

Frequently asked questions

RGB represents a color by mixing the three primary colors of light, red, green, and blue, each on a 0-255 scale, and it's the basic format computers use internally. HSL re-expresses the same color using three axes that map more closely to human intuition, hue, saturation, and lightness, which makes adjustments like "a bit brighter" or "a bit more vivid" much easier to reason about.

HSV and HSL share the same hue (H) and saturation (S) axes, but define the third axis differently. HSL's lightness describes how much a color is mixed toward black or white, while HSV's value describes only how much black has been mixed into the color. When you want to pick a vivid, near-pure color, HSV tends to feel more intuitive, which is why it's the model used in the color pickers of tools like Photoshop.

In theory, mixing equal parts of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink should produce black, but real inks are never perfectly pure, so combining all three only produces a muddy brown. To get crisp, deep blacks (especially for text), the printing industry adds a dedicated black ink, the key plate, denoted K.

Displays create color through additive mixing, combining red, green, and blue light, so RGB, which is based on the primary colors of light, is a natural fit. Printing, on the other hand, works by subtractive mixing, layering inks on paper that absorb light, so CMYK, the ink primaries plus black, is used instead. Because the two processes work on different principles, colors on screen and colors in print don't always match exactly, a gap known as a difference in color gamut.
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Side Note — the history behind these color models

The idea of additive color mixing behind RGB traces back to 19th-century color theory, but it only became widespread in computer graphics from the 1970s onward. Early color televisions and monitors created color by lighting up red, green, and blue phosphors on a cathode-ray tube, so RGB was adopted as the numeric model that mapped directly onto that physical hardware.

HSL and HSV were both devised by computer graphics researchers in the 1970s and 1980s to solve a specific usability problem: adjusting raw RGB numbers directly isn't intuitive for people. HSV in particular is well known for having been formalized in a 1978 paper by Alvy Ray Smith, who later became one of the co-founders of Pixar.

CMYK evolved alongside the history of printing technology and originates from a technique called four-color process printing. Because cyan, magenta, and yellow alone struggle to reproduce a deep, rich black, a dedicated key (black) plate was added to solve that print-specific limitation. CMYK remains the standard for offset printing, inkjet printers, and many other printing technologies to this day.

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