The colors of HTML and CSS can be identified with their hexadecimal codes. It’s essential to understand that if you are creating a webpage or other HTML project and you want to include an element that matches a particular color in an image, website, or window on your computer screen, you’ll need to find the color’s hex code. In this article, we’ll go over a variety of free tools that you can use to quickly figure out the hexadecimal code for any color.
Overview of Hex Color Code
The hex color code is a six-symbol code composed of up to three two-symbol elements. Color values range from 0 to 255 for each of the two-symbol elements.
- Element 1: Red value
- Element 2: Green value
- Element 3: Blue value
Formulas are used to turn each value into a unique 2-digit alphanumeric code. As an example, the RGB code (224, 105, 16) is E06910 in hexadecimal.
When? This has to do with the base-16 numbering system. If you’re curious, here’s why. As a designer, you might be wondering what all of this has to do with you as a person. Here are a couple important points you should know:
- Hexadecimal codes allow you to display more than 16 million unique colors, which is more than the human eye can see.
- To create the code, you can use a color picker or converter.
What are the benefits of using the hex code instead of numbers? If you used numbers, every red, green, or blue value from 0 to 255 would have one, two, or three possible digits. Codes could have as few as three digits or as many as nine. System readers as well as the coding humans might be confused by this. All values must be six symbols, no matter what. This reduces the chance of errors.
Hex color codes: What Are They?
Hex color codes indicate how much color to display on a display. This is a special code that represents color values between 0 and 255.
The color black is expressed if red, green, and blue are all at the minimum 0 (represented as “00” in the code). The color white is expressed when the red, green, and blue values are all at the maximum 255 (represented by the code “FF”).
Hex color values can be combined to create 16 million different colors. Most colors will fall somewhere between those two extremes. The RGB numeric values can always be converted into hexadecimal code by using a converter.
Popular Hex Color Codes
| Color | RGB | Hex Color Code |
| Black | (0, 0, 0) | #000000 |
| Blue | (0, 0, 255) | #0000FF |
| Gray | (128, 128, 128) | #808080 |
| Green | (0, 128, 0) | #008000 |
| Purple | (128, 0, 128) | #800080 |
| Red | (255, 0, 0) | #FF0000 |
| White | (255, 255, 255) | #FFFFFF |
How Do Hex Colors Work?
Hex colors use the RGB color model that has been around since the beginning of photography.
The theory behind the model is that if you assign different combinations of red, green, and blue color values, you can create nearly any color the eye can recognize. In addition to virtually every computer and phone screen, televisions, digital cameras, and video projectors use the RGB color model.
In most web and digital applications, a color value scale of 0 to 255 is employed. You (or a programmer) determine the amount of red, blue, and green on the screen. When those colors are combined, viewers see color.
If you want, you can pick any color you want. The total number of combinations possible is 16,777,216, which is more than the human eye can differentiate.
RGB Codes vs. Hex Codes: What’s the Difference?
Hex code colors are more predictable, so programmers prefer them. They always have six digits regardless of what color they are. As few as three digits can be used in RGB values, as many as nine may be used.
In web design, hex codes aren’t necessary. If you are coding a page with HTML, you can also use RGB values or even color names.A webpage with an aquamarine background would look like this if you were coding it.
- Hex color code for aquamarine:<div style=”background-color:#7FFFD4″></div>
- RGB color code for aquamarine:<div style=”background-color:rgb(127, 255, 212)”></div>
- Color name code for aquamarine:<div style=”background-color:aquamarine”></div>
It doesn’t mean you should specify the name or the RGB code just because you can. If you want to generate hex codes from color hex wheels, then use free color hex wheel pickers and converters. So, there will be less chance that a current or future coder will try to do the conversion themselves and ruin your beautiful web page.