RGB to HSL color

Reading a color as hue and lightness

Translate integer RGB channels into hue, saturation and lightness. Use RGB to HSL when you know exact red, green and blue channels but want a more intuitive way to compare colors or adjust a palette. The tool accepts integer channels from zero through 255, either in rgb() syntax or separated by commas. It derives hue from the dominant channel and the differences between channels.

The channels are normalized to 0–1; their maximum, minimum and difference determine HSL. Saturation falls to zero when all three channels are equal; gray then has no meaningful hue, so the output uses zero degrees by convention. Lightness is based on the midpoint between the highest and lowest normalized channel. The sample yields an HSL color near 211 degrees, useful for finding related blues. Displayed percentages are rounded to two decimals. For a concrete check, the example input rgb(42, 127, 220) produces hsl(211.35, 71.77%, 51.37%). Keep the original beside the result when comparing it with another application.

Understanding the color models

HEX and RGB describe the same three additive light channels. Each channel has an integer value from zero to 255, and hexadecimal writes that value with two base-sixteen digits. A six-digit code therefore has red, green and blue pairs in that order. HSL is another way to describe an RGB color: hue identifies a position on the color wheel, saturation controls distance from a gray of the same lightness, and lightness places the color between black and white. These forms are useful for comparing design tokens, reading CSS and adjusting a palette without guessing what a code means.

Choosing the right representation

The result has no alpha channel; this tool uses integer RGB and conventional HSL, not color-management profiles. Pick the form expected by the place where you will paste the result. CSS accepts both hex and rgb() or hsl() syntax, but a design system or graphics program may store channels separately. This tool uses ordinary sRGB arithmetic; it does not convert between display profiles or predict how every monitor will reproduce a color. Neither three-channel HEX nor these RGB and HSL outputs include transparency. A four- or eight-digit alpha code needs a separate operation. Integer RGB channels and displayed HSL decimals can also round, so a round trip may differ by one channel value.