Shallow Sea
#9ab8c2
A cyan that is nearly neutral — the hue shows only against a true grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.
Hex
#9ab8c2
RGB
154, 184, 194
OKLCh
76.3% 0.036 220.0°
CIELAB (D50)
72.8, -8.9, -8.7
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 7 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- 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 41.1; on black, Lc -61.2. 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 12.7 and 13.6 and 16.5 — no red cone.
Text on this colour
White text
2.10:1 — fails AA
Black text
10.01:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at10.01:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#5f7b85 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
#9ab8c2
protanopia
#b5b5c2 · ΔE00 12.7
deuteranopia
#b0b0c3 · ΔE00 13.6
tritanopia
#aaaaff · ΔE00 16.5
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isPeaceful Blue at ΔE00 0.756: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Peaceful BlueΔE00 0.756 · #9ab6c0
- Evocative BlueΔE00 1.133 · #9dbcc7
- Déjà BlueΔE00 1.145 · #9cbcc6
- French MoireΔE00 1.258 · #9fbbc3
- Sydney HarbourΔE00 1.798 · #97bbc8
- Tahoe BlueΔE00 1.936 · #94b8c1
- Bel EspritΔE00 1.995 · #9bbcc3
- Lucy BlueΔE00 2.049 · #91b2bc
- Blue ShellΔE00 2.096 · #9bb3bc
- Soft ShoreΔE00 2.209 · #a2bbc1
- Sterling BlueΔE00 2.241 · #a2b9c2
- Rest AssuredΔE00 2.325 · #9bbfc9
12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.