In the Shadows
#cbc4c0
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
#cbc4c0
RGB
203, 196, 192
OKLCh
82.5% 0.010 52.1°
CIELAB (D50)
79.6, 2.0, 2.9
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 28 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 9% 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 31.1; on black, Lc -71.7. 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.
- tritanopia shifts it by ΔE00 12.0 — no blue cone.
Text on this colour
White text
1.72:1 — fails AA
Black text
12.20:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at12.20:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#7c7672 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
#cbc4c0
protanopia
#c5c5c0 · ΔE00 3.8
deuteranopia
#c6c6c0 · ΔE00 4.1
tritanopia
#c7c7a8 · ΔE00 12.0
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isOrchid Shadow at ΔE00 0.664: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Orchid ShadowΔE00 0.664 · #cbc5c2
- White GauzeΔE00 0.727 · #c9c2bd
- DimΔE00 0.748 · #c8c2be
- Chicago FogΔE00 0.772 · #cac2bd
- Silver CrossΔE00 0.839 · #cdc5c2
- Modest SilverΔE00 1.015 · #c7c0bc
- Mud BerryΔE00 1.154 · #d0c8c4
- White FlagΔE00 1.168 · #c8c2c0
- Bleached BareΔE00 1.285 · #d0c7c3
- Slight MushroomΔE00 1.291 · #cfc9c5
- Worn SilverΔE00 1.349 · #c9c0bb
- Amethyst IceΔE00 1.358 · #d0c9c6
10 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.