Copper Patina

#9db4a0

A green 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

#9db4a0

RGB

157, 180, 160

OKLCh

74.7% 0.038 148.9°

CIELAB (D50)

71.1, -11.1, 7.4

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • 2 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
  • It uses only 18% 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 43.7; on black, Lc -58.5. 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.
  • protanopia and deuteranopia and tritanopia shift it by ΔE00 9.4 and 9.8 and 27.3 — no red cone.

Text on this colour

White text

2.22:1 — fails AA

Black text

9.47:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at9.47:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#677c69 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

#9db4a0

protanopia

#b2b2a0 · ΔE00 9.4

deuteranopia

#aeaea1 · ΔE00 9.8

tritanopia

#a9a9db · ΔE00 27.3

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isSilver Leaf at ΔE00 1.471: between 1 and 2 — a trained eye spots it when the two touch; nobody spots it across a room. What the numbers mean.

  • Silver LeafΔE00 1.471 · #9db7a5
  • Bamboo ShootΔE00 1.72 · #a3b6a4
  • Spearmint HazeΔE00 2.036 · #9cb8a6
  • Phoenix TearsΔE00 2.089 · #99b1a2
  • Leamington SpaΔE00 2.095 · #a0b7a8
  • Aqua FoamΔE00 2.353 · #a1baaa
  • AtticaΔE00 2.43 · #a1bca9
  • ReedsΔE00 2.466 · #a0bca7
  • Frosty GreenΔE00 2.529 · #a3b5a6
  • Burma JadeΔE00 2.597 · #94b1a0
  • Thrush EggΔE00 2.621 · #a4b6a7
  • BryophyteΔE00 2.942 · #a6bea6

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