Steam Engine
#b2b2ad
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.
Hex
#b2b2ad
RGB
178, 178, 173
OKLCh
76.2% 0.007 106.6°
CIELAB (D50)
72.5, -0.7, 2.6
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 22 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 41.8; on black, Lc -60.5. 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
2.13:1 — fails AA
Black text
9.86:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at9.86:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#777772 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#b2b2ad
protanopia
#b2b2ad · ΔE00 0.0
deuteranopia
#b2b2ad · ΔE00 0.0
tritanopia
#b2b2ad · ΔE00 0.0
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isPlymouth Grey at ΔE00 0.64: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Plymouth GreyΔE00 0.64 · #b0b1ac
- Stately GreystoneΔE00 0.756 · #b0b0aa
- Colonnade GreyΔE00 0.821 · #b2b1ad
- Quincy GraniteΔE00 0.94 · #b5b5af
- Mud PotsΔE00 1.206 · #b6b5b1
- Praise GivingΔE00 1.234 · #b2b1ae
- Bashful EmuΔE00 1.355 · #b2b0ac
- Grey CloudsΔE00 1.369 · #b7b7b2
- Church MouseΔE00 1.396 · #b3b5af
- Kitty WhiskersΔE00 1.61 · #b7b5b1
- Urban PuttyΔE00 1.629 · #b0b1a9
- Silver ChaliceΔE00 1.648 · #acaea9
12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.