Dead Pixel
#3b3a3a
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is dark — it carries white text and needs care with black.
Hex
#3b3a3a
RGB
59, 58, 58
OKLCh
34.9% 0.001 17.2°
CIELAB (D50)
24.5, 0.4, 0.2
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 17 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it — this part of the space is crowded, and the names here are finer distinctions than most people make.
- It uses almost none of the chroma available here: this is a grey with a trace of hue rather than a colour.
- As text on white it measures APCA Lc 96.2; on black, Lc 0.0. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
- Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
- All three dichromacies see it as very nearly the same colour you do: its hue is not the part carrying its identity.
Text on this colour
White text
11.34:1 — passes AA
Black text
1.85:1 — fails AA
White text is the better of the two at11.34:1. That is enough for body text.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#3b3a3a
protanopia
#3a3a3a · ΔE00 0.7
deuteranopia
#3a3a3a · ΔE00 0.7
tritanopia
#3a3a37 · ΔE00 2.5
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isShisha Coal at ΔE00 0.741: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Shisha CoalΔE00 0.741 · #3c3b3c
- Boltgun MetalΔE00 0.785 · #393939
- Lacquered LiquoriceΔE00 0.991 · #383838
- Dark SummoningΔE00 1.123 · #383839
- Raven BlackΔE00 1.132 · #3d3d3d
- Black LacquerΔE00 1.31 · #3f3e3e
- Black LiquoriceΔE00 1.37 · #3a3b3b
- Coal Hard TruthΔE00 1.405 · #3b3b3d
- IridiumΔE00 1.445 · #3d3c3a
- Yin MistΔE00 1.449 · #3b3c3c
- Black SmokeΔE00 1.527 · #3e3e3f
- Sayward PineΔE00 1.608 · #383739
10 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.