Fish Bone

#e4d9c5

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

#e4d9c5

RGB

228, 217, 197

OKLCh

88.9% 0.029 82.6°

CIELAB (D50)

87.2, 1.5, 11.3

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • 49 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 26% 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 19.3; on black, Lc -84.2. 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.
  • protanopia and deuteranopia and tritanopia shift it by ΔE00 5.6 and 5.8 and 13.7 — no red cone.

Text on this colour

White text

1.40:1 — fails AA

Black text

15.03:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at15.03:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#807664 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

#e4d9c5

protanopia

#dadac5 · ΔE00 5.6

deuteranopia

#dcdcc5 · ΔE00 5.8

tritanopia

#dfdf97 · ΔE00 13.7

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isHalf Spanish White at ΔE00 0.455: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.

  • Half Spanish WhiteΔE00 0.455 · #e6dbc7
  • Instant ClassicΔE00 0.988 · #e3dac6
  • Scrolled ParchmentΔE00 1.066 · #e9ddc9
  • Gentle LambΔE00 1.108 · #e3d9c8
  • Illusive DreamΔE00 1.116 · #e1d5c2
  • Whirligig GeyserΔE00 1.155 · #dfd4c0
  • Toasted BarleyΔE00 1.18 · #e7ddcb
  • Serengeti DustΔE00 1.181 · #e7dbc9
  • Pale PalominoΔE00 1.202 · #e5dbca
  • Aged ParchmentΔE00 1.205 · #e9ddca
  • MuscoviteΔE00 1.212 · #e9decb
  • Canvas LuggageΔE00 1.244 · #e2d7c6

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