HueComb

Quill Grey

#cbc9c0

A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is very light — it works as a page background, not as text.

Hex

#cbc9c0

RGB

203, 201, 192

OKLCh

83.5% 0.013 96.5°

CIELAB (D50)

80.9, -0.5, 4.8

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • 44 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 only 7% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
  • As text on white it measures APCA Lc 29.1; on black, Lc -73.8. 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

1.66:1 — fails AA

Black text

12.66:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at12.66:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#79776f is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.

Try it against your own background

The same colour, with one cone missing

As you see it

#cbc9c0

protanopia

#c9c9c0 · ΔE00 1.1

deuteranopia

#cacac0 · ΔE00 1.1

tritanopia

#cacab9 · ΔE00 3.4

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isDolphin Fin at ΔE00 0.247: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.

  • Dolphin FinΔE00 0.247 · #cccac1
  • Whitewash OakΔE00 0.534 · #cac9c0
  • Repose GreyΔE00 0.536 · #ccc9c0
  • Passing ShadowΔE00 0.76 · #cbcac0
  • Early EveningΔE00 0.874 · #cac7bf
  • Silver Thistle DownΔE00 0.973 · #cac9c2
  • Aloof GreyΔE00 1.063 · #c9c9c0
  • Swirling SmokeΔE00 1.123 · #cecac1
  • Silver MarlinΔE00 1.139 · #c8c8c0
  • So Chic!ΔE00 1.14 · #cecdc5
  • Notre DameΔE00 1.181 · #c6c5bc
  • Front PorchΔE00 1.211 · #cdccc5

12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.