Launched in , 0to255 began as a response to a universal design challenge: maintaining brand consistency while adjusting a color's lightness for different elements, such as darkening a link on hover or brightening a background color behind text to improve legibility.
Using traditional color pickers for this task was unintuitive, as most color pickers at the time didn't support HSL. This led many designers to manually tweak hex codes, often resulting in unintended shifts in hue or saturation.
Fast-forward to today: 0to255 has been used by over 3 million creatives and remains the best tool for quickly finding lighter or darker color variations. Its initial focus inspired a more intuitive and systematic color-picker interface, ultimately leading to the release of Color Studio in 2024. Building on the original concept, Color Studio provides a more comprehensive solution for a wider range of color tasks, making it an essential tool for any designer.
With ongoing improvements and feedback from the community, 0to255 continues to evolve to meet modern design needs while staying true to its original vision: providing tools that make working with color as easy, efficient, and fun as possible.
Questions you may ask
What's the difference between 0to255 and Color Studio?
To clarify the naming: 0to255 was the name of the original color tool launched in 2010 on this website. It has since evolved into the brand name for the current and future set of color tools available here.
Color Studio is the first tool in a planned series of advanced color tools designed specifically for professionals who work with color.
Is Color Studio an optional upgrade to the free tool?
While 0to255 hasn't technically been free since 2013 or so (it's been supported by ads since then), Color Studio has replaced the previous ad-supported tool.
A deliberate effort has been made to ensure that long-time users will feel right at home in Color Studio. You can choose to display only the lightness scale to match the look of the previous tool, and the other default settings align with the previous tool.
Why have you switched from an ad-supported model to a subscription model?
As the 0to255 userbase continues to grow, the decline in ad revenue reached a point where it was no longer sufficient to sustain 0to255. This is likely attributed to a rise in ad-blocker usage and increased browser efforts to restrict trackers, which inadvertently block ads.
In reality, this turns out to be a positive development. Ads are designed to divert your attention, which is less than ideal for a design tool that demands focused concentration for optimal results.
By subscribing, you play a crucial role in keeping 0to255 available to use.
Do you offer refunds?
We offer refunds for purchases requested via email within 24 hours of purchase. After this period, refunds are not available, as we provide a 7-day free trial (no credit card required) to explore the full product before deciding to buy.
Discover a new way to color.
There are 16,777,216 color hex codes. With so many options, how do you choose the right color?
The latest research on color perception tells us that somewhere between 40% to 99% of these colors are indistinguishable to the human eye.*
Which begs the question: if we can't see the difference between two colors, why should we waste time deciding between them?
What if you could easily narrow down the endless list of options without sacrificing the meaningful ones?
Introducing Color Studio
Designed from the ground up for maximum efficiency, Color Studio does color differently.
Most color pickers require you to use sliders to make adjustments, which makes it difficult to be systematic in comparing or revisiting colors.
With Color Studio, you can see all the relevant options in front of you without having to adjust anything. Let your eyes be the guide. There's never been a faster way to find that perfect color.
Ultra-efficient yet delightful to use
1
Quickly scan for the color you have in mind in the one-of-a-kind Color Grid.
Select a color that's close to what you're looking for. Don't worry about finding the exact color just yet.
Similar colors are clustered together in order to guide your eyes to the right area.
2
Fine-tune the selected color with the super useful Color Scales feature.
The selected color is displayed in the middle, and the color you have in mind is now just a few spaces above or below it.
Use the loupe feature to measure contrast ratios, making it easier than ever to conform to accessibility guidelines.
3
Copy the color in the format of your choice to try out in your project.
Compare different options and Color Studio will indicate which ones you've already copied.
The format can be auto-detected based on the input color, saving you even more time.
The Jury Is In
“A near perfect color picker”
“50 shades of… well, any colour actually.”
“Perfect for finding just the right hue”
“The scale provided by 0to255 feels much more natural in regards to saturation.”
“It is designed for speed”
“If you need a great colour tool try this, it's the best I've ever found.”
“Love this website so much”
Bring your designs to lifewith vivid color.
Now supporting the Display P3 & OKLCh color spaces.It's never been easier or more fun to find the perfect color.
No credit card required to try.
Featured in publications by
About
Launched in , 0to255 began as a response to a universal design challenge: maintaining brand consistency while adjusting a color's lightness for different elements, such as darkening a link on hover or brightening a background color behind text to improve legibility.
Using traditional color pickers for this task was unintuitive, as most color pickers at the time didn't support HSL. This led many designers to manually tweak hex codes, often resulting in unintended shifts in hue or saturation.
Fast-forward to today: 0to255 has been used by over 3 million creatives and remains the best tool for quickly finding lighter or darker color variations. Its initial focus inspired a more intuitive and systematic color-picker interface, ultimately leading to the release of Color Studio in 2024. Building on the original concept, Color Studio provides a more comprehensive solution for a wider range of color tasks, making it an essential tool for any designer.
With ongoing improvements and feedback from the community, 0to255 continues to evolve to meet modern design needs while staying true to its original vision: providing tools that make working with color as easy, efficient, and fun as possible.
Questions you may ask
What's the difference between 0to255 and Color Studio?
To clarify the naming: 0to255 was the name of the original color tool launched in 2010 on this website. It has since evolved into the brand name for the current and future set of color tools available here.
Color Studio is the first tool in a planned series of advanced color tools designed specifically for professionals who work with color.
Is Color Studio an optional upgrade to the free tool?
While 0to255 hasn't technically been free since 2013 or so (it's been supported by ads since then), Color Studio has replaced the previous ad-supported tool.
A deliberate effort has been made to ensure that long-time users will feel right at home in Color Studio. You can choose to display only the lightness scale to match the look of the previous tool, and the other default settings align with the previous tool.
Why have you switched from an ad-supported model to a subscription model?
As the 0to255 userbase continues to grow, the decline in ad revenue reached a point where it was no longer sufficient to sustain 0to255. This is likely attributed to a rise in ad-blocker usage and increased browser efforts to restrict trackers, which inadvertently block ads.
In reality, this turns out to be a positive development. Ads are designed to divert your attention, which is less than ideal for a design tool that demands focused concentration for optimal results.
By subscribing, you play a crucial role in keeping 0to255 available to use.
Do you offer refunds?
We offer refunds for purchases requested via email within 24 hours of purchase. After this period, refunds are not available, as we provide a 7-day free trial (no credit card required) to explore the full product before deciding to buy.
After countless hours of effort, I couldn't be happier to (finally) announce: Color Studio is here! 🎉🎊🥳
Before we get into the details, I want to thank the fine folks who pre-ordered. Your vote of confidence has made it possible for me to devote the effort necessary to make Color Studio a reality. It also ensures that 0to255 remains financially viable for the foreseeable future.
I also want to thank those who provided feedback last year by answering the questionnaire, joining the 0to255 Slack community, and/or writing in via email. Your input has helped shape Color Studio into a tool that is not only useful but also a joy to use.
Thank you all for your support and patience! I hope you find it invaluable!
Now, let's get into the details. In case you missed the pre-order announcement, here's an overview of the new features:
Ultimate versatility: Say goodbye to the limitation of only using 0to255 for hover colors! Color Studio transforms 0to255 into a comprehensive and ultra-efficient color tool. There's nothing like it! *chef's kiss*
Advanced color science: Cutting-edge algorithms deliver silky-smooth gradations and evenly spaced color intervals based on perceptual difference. This means you'll get more predictable results on the first try, reducing the need for adjustments.
Display P3 support: In compatible browsers and displays, level up your designs with vibrant colors from the Display P3 color space. You can also easily select fallback colors in sRGB for compatibility.
Granular control: Choosing colors is a gradual process that begins with broad strokes and becomes more refined over time. Depending on what stage you're at, you can customize the step size between colors, allowing you to create a more detailed or broader list of options to choose from.
Scroll-adjust mode: Fine-tune your tones by activating the scroll-adjust mode and simply scrolling up or down.
Recent color history: Revisit previously selected colors with one click, freeing you to explore new colors without losing track of ones that may have worked better.
Enhanced loupe: Compare colors and contrast ratios with the improved loupe feature, making color selection and accessibility considerations a breeze.
Customized color formats: Manually customize color formats to align with your preferences, or automatically detect based on the input color.
Light/dark themes: Choose between light or dark UI themes, or synchronize with your system settings.
Ad-free experience: 0to255 is now 100% supported by subscriptions, offering uninterrupted and ad-free color exploration.
Be sure to check out the article on the advanced color science in Color Studio. There's no other color tool today that uses the modern OKLCh and Display P3 color spaces to the extent that Color Studio does. By taking the science seriously, Color Studio allows your creativity to flow more effortlessly. And with an obsessive focus on usability, and OKLCh being a perceptual color space, Color Studio is perhaps the most human-friendly color picker ever made.
My passion is to make it easier for talented people to do great work. I believe you'll find Color Studio makes it a little easier to do just that. I built this for all of you, so please reach out with feedback and any questions that arise as you explore the new features over the coming weeks and months. Together, we can make it even better. With that, I'll leave you to it.
Questions you may ask
What's the difference between 0to255 and Color Studio?
To clarify the naming: 0to255 was the name of the original color tool launched in 2010 on this website. It has since evolved into the brand name for the current and future set of color tools available here.
Color Studio is the first tool in a planned series of advanced color tools designed specifically for professionals who work with color.
Is Color Studio an optional upgrade to the free tool?
While 0to255 hasn't technically been free since 2013 or so (it's been supported by ads since then), Color Studio has replaced the previous ad-supported tool.
A deliberate effort has been made to ensure that long-time users will feel right at home in Color Studio. You can choose to display only the lightness scale to match the look of the previous tool, and the other default settings align with the previous tool.
Why have you switched from an ad-supported model to a subscription model?
As the 0to255 userbase continues to grow, the decline in ad revenue reached a point where it was no longer sufficient to sustain 0to255. This is likely attributed to a rise in ad-blocker usage and increased browser efforts to restrict trackers, which inadvertently block ads.
In reality, this turns out to be a positive development. Ads are designed to divert your attention, which is less than ideal for a design tool that demands focused concentration for optimal results.
By subscribing, you play a crucial role in keeping 0to255 available to use.
Do you offer refunds?
We offer refunds for purchases requested via email within 24 hours of purchase. After this period, refunds are not available, as we provide a 7-day free trial (no credit card required) to explore the full product before deciding to buy.
In the most recent news article, we mentioned the advanced color science behind Color Studio. But what does this mean in practical terms? Is it simply marketing jargon? Let's break it down visually.
In the current version of 0to255, a notable issue exists with bright greens and yellows. Have you ever noticed how several adjacent colors look identical? Despite their actual differences, our eyes perceive them as similar.
Color Studio addresses this issue by using a custom algorithm that leverages Delta E, a measure of color difference, to ensure colors maintain equal perceptual distance from each other. This results in a more uniform distribution, particularly in the yellow-green spectrum.
Additionally, our perception of hue shifts as brightness increases, causing blues to appear more purple. This effect, known as the Abney effect, is resolved in Color Studio through the utilization of the modern OKLab color space.
Color Studio introduces the ability to adjust hue and saturation, in addition to lightness, across different color spaces. Unlike the current HSL-only method, which often appears brighter or darker depending on the hue, Color Studio offers OKHSL, ensuring a more consistent hue scale relative to lightness.
So, how does this benefit you? Consider changing the color of a button; with Color Studio, it's effortless, requiring only the adjustment of hue without altering saturation or lightness. In contrast, using HSL may result in the button appearing too light or dark for the background color.
Backed by extensive color science research and rigorous testing, Color Studio promises a state-of-the-art color experience. Designed to be super easy to use, Color Studio allows you to find the perfect color effortlessly without needing to be an expert in color science.
Well folks, it's been a long, winding road, but I'm thrilled to share some exciting news—0to255 Studio is finally becoming a reality!
But before diving into the details, I'd like to extend a sincere thank you to the incredible individuals who shared their feedback and answered my countless questions. Your generosity and patience have helped shape Color Studio into a wonderfully powerful tool. Thank you all so, so much!
And of course, without you, dear users, 0to255 wouldn't even be a thing. So, up top 🙌
Introducing Color Studio
With credit given where it's due, let's dive in! After talking to dozens of yous, it became clear that 0to255 users fell into two distinct camps:
The first camp prefers simplicity. Whether it's designers, developers, soon-to-be parents choosing paint colors for their nursery, or DIY solopreneurs crafting their websites on Wix, they wanted a color tool that was like 0to255, but could do more than just help them find hover colors. No extra features to science color palettes into existence, or share them with colleagues/clients—just the best color, fast, thank you very much.
The second camp are the hardcores among us who are dreaming up resplendent palettes in their sleep and neurolinking them to their teammates while they eat their Cheerios. This camp, which includes brand designers, art directors, data visualization experts, and artists, wanted advanced features for working with multiple colors simultaneously—such as smoothing hues with Bezier curves, harmonizing colors, and creating style guides.
Recognizing these distinct needs, I've split 0to255 Studio into two tools: Color Studio for the first camp and Palette Studio for the second. While Palette Studio will encompass all Color Studio features, it'll offer additional features for creating and managing palettes—on steroids. As an independent creator, building everything simultaneously posed challenges. Thus, I've decided to launch Color Studio first, with Palette Studio following when resources permit.
After countless hours of effort, I'm delighted to announce that Color Studio will hit the digital shelves sometime this spring. Starting today, you can pre-order Color Studio and receive 3 free months of color-picking goodness! 💪💪💪
Now, let's explore the wonders of Color Studio.
Color Studio features:
Ultimate versatility: Say goodbye to the limitation of only using 0to255 for hover colors! Color Studio transforms 0to255 into a comprehensive and ultra-efficient color tool. There's nothing like it! *chef's kiss*
Advanced color science: Cutting-edge algorithms deliver silky-smooth gradations and evenly spaced color intervals based on perceptual difference. This means you’ll get more predictable results on the first try, reducing the need for adjustments.
Display P3 support: In compatible browsers and displays, level up your designs with vibrant colors from the Display P3 color space. You can also easily select fallback colors in sRGB for compatibility.
Granular control: Choosing colors is a gradual process that begins with broad strokes and becomes more refined over time. Depending on what stage you're at, you can customize the step size between colors, allowing you to create a more detailed or broader list of options to choose from.
Scroll-adjust mode: Fine-tune your tones by activating the scroll-adjust mode and simply scrolling up or down.
Recent color history: Revisit previously selected colors with one click, freeing you to explore new colors without losing track of ones that may have worked better.
Enhanced loupe: Compare colors and contrast ratios with the improved loupe feature, making color selection and accessibility considerations a breeze.
Customized color formats: Manually customize color formats to align with your preferences, or automatically detect based on the input color.
Light/dark themes: Choose between light or dark UI themes, or synchronize with your system settings.
Ad-free experience: 0to255 is now 100% supported by subscriptions, offering uninterrupted and ad-free color exploration.
Not only was Color Studio designed from the ground up for maximum efficiency and best-in-class functionality—it was also designed to inspire. Great tools can inspire great work, and I can't wait to see what you all create with Color Studio!
While an exact date isn't yet planned, it will launch sometime in Spring 2024.
When will the payment for my pre-order be processed?
Your pre-order helps fund the launch of Color Studio, as well as the development of Palette Studio, so your payment will be processed immediately. Your continued support and patience is much appreciated!
When does my subscription period start?
You will have access to Color Studio beginning on the day it launches until 15 months after that, at which point your subscription will automatically renew. Cancel any time.
Do you offer refunds?
Refunds requested via email within 24 hours of pre-ordering will be issued. Refunds requested after the 24 hour window will not be issued.
Will Color Studio be an optional upgrade to the current free tool?
While 0to255 hasn't technically been free since 2013 or so (it's been supported by ads since then), Color Studio will replace the current ad-supported tool when it launches.
A deliberate effort has been made to ensure that long-time users will feel right at home in Color Studio. You can choose to display only the lightness scale to match the look of the current tool, and the other default settings align with the current tool.
Why are you switching from an ad-supported model to a subscription model?
As the 0to255 userbase continues to grow, the decline in ad revenue has reached a point where it is no longer sufficient to sustain 0to255. This is likely attributed to a rise in ad-blocker usage and increased browser efforts to restrict trackers, which inadvertently block ads.
In reality, this turns out to be a positive development. Ads are designed to divert your attention, which is less than ideal for a design tool like 0to255 that demands focused concentration for optimal results.
By subscribing, you play a crucial role in keeping 0to255 available to use.
I hope you're all having a great start to 2023 and that you're making progress on your New Year's resolutions. It's been a busy year over here at the 0to255 headquarters.
Since December 2022, I've resumed work on the next version of 0to255. My goal is to make 0to255 the most efficient and advanced color tool on the planet, one that's as easy to use as the 0to255 you know and love. As I continue to work on it, I'm accepting feature requests, suggestions, and feedback. I would love to hear from you!
To that end, I've set up a questionnaire where you can give your input. If you have some time (should take around 5–10 minutes), it'd help me tremendously if you fill it out.
Also, I set up a Slack community where you can chime in, be a part of what's to come, and meet other users. You can also send me an email if that's more your style.
Whether you've been using 0to255 for 13 years or you just found it last week, your input matters. So reach out. I'm listening.
Thanks again to those of you who have already given feedback. You rock!
One of the most common tasks while designing is to find tints and shades of a particular color to use in various parts of a design. In early 2010, I accomplished this by manually adjusting the hex values. #900 became #800 or #a00. It was an imperfect science and I often unwittingly changed the hue or saturation. I searched for a way to more precisely do this, which led to me building 0to255. Fast-forward 12 years (wow, has it really been that long?) and 0to255 has remained focused on this specific use-case.
Simplicity has always been one of 0to255's strengths. One of my biggest inspirations for building software is the Unix philosophy that programs should do one thing and do it well, and that they should be modular, having a simple interface so they can be composed with other programs in endless combinations to fit any situation. By and large, 0to255 is a web-based color tool that adheres to the Unix philosophy.
As I've thought over the years about how to improve 0to255, while being careful to not diminish its strengths, I noticed that something was missing. I found myself frequently using search engines to convert colors between different color formats. This was particularly true when using semitransparent colors as I prefer to use the RGBA functional notation for semitransparent colors.
I'm pleased to announce that as of today, you can use 0to255 to convert colors between the three most common CSS color notations:
RGB hexadecimal, e.g. #f00
RGB functional, e.g. rgb(255,0,0)New
HSL functional, e.g. hsl(0,100%,50%)New
In addition, given how common it is to use semitransparent colors, 0to255 now fully supports the alpha component in each of the color formats, even hex (for example, #0000ff33 and the shortened version #00f3 are valid CSS colors, “33” being the alpha component in this case).
In programming and in life, it's often important to be consistent. Whether you prefer to have spaces after the commas, no spaces, spaces-only, or any number of other ways to format a color expression, we've got you covered. 0to255 will automatically detect the specific formatting preferences from the input value and return the list of tints and shades in that same format. No checkboxes to check or preferences to set. You reap what you sow.
I hope you enjoy the new features. Don't hesitate to reach out with questions, concerns, or suggestions. As always, thank you for using 0to255. Stay well and happy color-picking!
The most intuitive color tool on the planet is nearly here. In the next month or so I'll be releasing 0to255 Studio, a complete color solution that's designed to be powerful enough for the most color-savvy professionals yet intuitive enough for everyone to find that perfect color. I've been designing it for several years, and, maybe I'm biased, but I think it's the bee's knees as far as color tools go. I think you'll probably like it too. Here are some things you'll be able to do with it:
Create color palettes using a new interface that builds on the intuitive design of 0to255. It'll probably look like the image above. Maybe a little different. Who's to say? I don't write on stones. It'll probably be even better. Maybe worse. That's the risk you take when you make things. But that's not news to you, you maker-of-things you.
Save all your colors and palettes. Access them anytime, anywhere with your very own 0to255 account. Export them too. Do whatever you want with them. They're your palettes.
Convert colors to and from the most popular color spaces including RGB, HSL, HSV/HSB, CMYK, CIELab, and CIELCh. And thank you for the blessings, but I did not just sneeze.
Adjust colors using any scale in the color spaces mentioned above, for example HSB hue, HSL saturation, CMYK cyan, or CIELCh lightness. The new interface uses perceptual difference to figure out which color should go where, so you can be sure that two colors three spaces apart will look exactly as different as any other two colors three spaces apart, regardless of which scale you're lookin' at. Not only that, you'll be able to adjust just how different or similar they are when you need to fine-tune your tones. In design, precision makes all the difference.
Customize the format that's copied to your clipboard so you can use it wherever you want without having to futz with it first.
0to255 Studio will be an optional upgrade to the current 0to255. All these features, plus an ad-free experience, will be available soon for $14/year. As a bonus, you'll have access to any new features and improvements as they're developed. Subscribe to the newsletter to be notified when 0to255 Studio is released.
As always, thanks for using 0to255! Your support is greatly appreciated and enables me to continue building useful tools.
You may have noticed that 0to255 has received a little T.L.C., and not the kind where the chasing of waterfalls is advised against, though that shiny new color grid on your right is kinda like a waterfall of color. Go ahead and scroll that puppy. See what I mean? Whoosh!
And you may have thought a few times there that 0to255 had seen its last days. If you've ever doubted the longevity of 0to255, I won't hold that against you. After all, I launched it in 2010 and until today it's been more or less the same as when it launched. But I'm happy to tell you that 0to255 is just getting started. If you could see my Google Analytics account, you'd know that traffic has consistently increased in the past few years. I'm not the kind of person to neglect something that's growing. It's clear to me that people need an intuitive color tool now more than ever.
When I made 0to255, I wanted a tool that made it super easy to find variations of colors. Paste a color, click a color, done. The original design has worked well for 9 years. However, a lot of things have happened in that time. In 2010, most people were still carrying around phones that didn't do much more than make phone calls. Since then, smart phones have become ubiquitous. The original design just didn't work on phones. While that wasn't a huge issue because most people do their design and development work on their computers, sometimes inspiration strikes on-the-go. People told me they wanted to use it on their phones. Now you can.
The most exciting reason for the update, however, is that year-after-year I thought about how to make 0to255 even more useful. I have a lot planned for this little color tool, and it doesn't stop with color, but it does start with it. My goal is to design intuitive tools that save you time and make it easier for you to get great results. If you love 0to255 now, I know you're going to love what I have in store so much more. I can't wait for you to get your hands on it! It's going to take me some time to realize everything I have in mind. I hope you stick around and get involved because there's a fun road ahead! The launch of 0to255 in 2010 was the first step on this journey. Today's launch of the new design is the second step. The next step is 0to255 Studio, a complete color tool that builds on the intuitive design of 0to255. It will be an optional upgrade to the current free version which will remain free. Read about what you'll be able to do with 0to255 Studio here.
What's new:
A shiny new design that makes better use of screen space and can accommodate upcoming features.
An improved random color grid that groups similar colors together so you can quickly scan for the right color.
It now works on all your devices regardless of screen size.
A few handfuls of minor tweaks and bug fixes. Play around with it! You may just find that it's easier than ever to find and adjust colors.
Long-time users should find themselves right at home with the new design as mostly everything works the same as it did before. However, if you run into any issues, don't hesitate to reach out. I am listening closely to feedback and have already made changes based on it, so if you don't like something, let me know and I'll do my best to fix it.
Over two million people have used 0to255 since the day it launched. Nothing makes me happier than thinking about all the amazing things you all must have made over the years with a little help from 0to255. I look forward to continuing to design tools that help you get your work done.
Contact
How may I be of service to you, Earth companion?
I'm having trouble with something.
support@0to255.com
You know what would make 0to255 even better?
feedback@0to255.com
My audience would 😍 0to255!
press@0to255.com
Let's make a deal. Whad'ya say,
partner@0to255.com
I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
hello@0to255.com
In most cases, you can expect a response within a few days.