What is a color converter
A color converter translates a single color between the formats CSS understands: HEX (#dc2626), RGB (rgb(220, 38, 38)), HSL (hsl(0, 72%, 51%)), and OKLCH (oklch(57.7% 0.245 27.3)). Each format expresses the same color but optimizes for a different use case — HEX for compactness, RGB for hardware roots, HSL for human-friendly tweaking, OKLCH for perceptual accuracy.
Why OKLCH matters in 2026
OKLCH is the format design systems are converging on. Lightness in OKLCH corresponds to perceived brightness, not just the math of RGB channels — which means a button at 60% lightness in red looks the same brightness as a button at 60% lightness in blue. With HSL, those would feel jarringly different.
If you’re building a design system today, generate your palette in OKLCH and let the rest of the pipeline derive HEX/RGB fallbacks.
Use cases
- Design system migration: convert an existing palette from HEX to OKLCH to unlock perceptual scaling.
- Tailwind v4 themes: drop OKLCH values straight into
@theme { --color-accent: oklch(...) }. - Accessibility audits: pick a candidate color and see its contrast against white instantly.
- Cross-tool handoff: paste a color from a Figma file in any format, get the rest in seconds.