CSS Color Module Level 4

W3C First Public Working Draft,

This version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-css-color-4-20160705/
Latest version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-4/
Editor's Draft:
https://drafts.csswg.org/css-color/
Feedback:
www-style@w3.org with subject line “[css-color] … message topic …” (archives)
Issue Tracking:
Inline In Spec
Editors:
Tab Atkins Jr. (Google)
(W3C)
Former Editor:
(Mozilla Corporation)

Abstract

This specification describes CSS <color> values and properties for foreground color and group opacity.

CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc.

Status of this document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

This document is a First Public Working Draft.

Publication as a First Public Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

The (archived) public mailing list www-style@w3.org (see instructions) is preferred for discussion of this specification. When sending e-mail, please put the text “css-color” in the subject, preferably like this: “[css-color] …summary of comment…

This document was produced by the CSS Working Group (part of the Style Activity).

This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

This document is governed by the 1 September 2015 W3C Process Document.

1. Introduction

This section is not normative.

This module describes CSS properties which allow authors to specify the foreground color and opacity of the text content of an element. This module also describes in detail the CSS <color> value type.

It not only defines the color-related properties and values that already exist in CSS1 and CSS2, but also defines new properties and values.

2. Foreground Color: the color property

Name: color
Value: <color>
Initial: UA-defined, see prose
Applies to: all elements
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: an RGBA color
Animation type: discrete

This property describes the foreground fill color of an element’s text content. In addition, it provides the value that currentcolor resolves to. If the currentcolor keyword is set on the color property itself, it is treated as color: inherit.

The initial value of this property is black.

There are several different ways to syntactically specify a given color.

For example, to specify lime green:
em { color: lime; }              /* color keyword   */
em { color: rgb(0,255,0); }      /* RGB range 0-255 */
em { color: rgb(0.0,100.0,0.0); }      /* RGB range 0%-100% */
<color>
The <color> type is defined in a later section.

3. Representing sRGB Colors: the <color> type

CSS colors in the sRGB color space are represented by a triplet of values—red, green, and blue—identifying a point in the sRGB color space [SRGB]. This is an internationally-recognized, device-independent color space, and so is useful for specifying colors that will be displayed on a computer screen, but is also useful for specifying colors on other types of devices, like printers. (See [COLORIMETRY].) Additionally, every color is accompanied by an alpha component, indicating how transparent it is, and thus how much of the backdrop one can see behind the color. The components are also sometimes called "channels". Each channel has a minimum and maximum value, and can take any value between those two.

While all colors share an underlying storage format, CSS contains several syntaxes for specifying <color> values. Some directly specify the sRGB color, such as the rgb() and rgba() functions and the hex notation. Others are more human-friendly to write and understand, and are converted to an sRGB color by CSS, such as the hsl() and hsla() functions, or the long list of named colors defined by CSS.

In total, the definition of <color> is:

<color> = <rgb()> | <rgba()> | <hsl()> | <hsla()> |
          <hwb()> | <gray()> | <device-cmyk()> | <color-mod()> |
          <hex-color> | <named-color> | currentcolor |
          <deprecated-system-color>

Some operations work differently on achromatic colors. An achromatic color is a shade of gray: in the RGB colorspace, a color is achromatic if the red, green, and blue channels are all the same value; in the HSL colorspace, a color is achromatic if the saturation is 0%; in the HWB colorspace, a color is achromatic if the sum of the whiteness and blackness is at least 100%.

3.1. Notes On Using Colors

Although colors can add significant amounts of information to documents and make them more readable, color by itself should not be the sole means to convey important information. Please consider the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [WCAG20] when including color in your documents.

3.2. Colors in sRGB

Colors specified in CSS, HTML, and untagged images are in the sRGB color space ([SRGB]).

This is not yet reliably implemented across implementations, though it has been shown to be implementable. Implementing it compatibly may require notifying plugins to treat untagged colors in the same way to avoid issues with colors not matching each other within a page.

An untagged image is an image that is not explicitly assigned a color profile, as defined by the image format.

Note that this rule does not apply to videos, since untagged video should be presumed to be in CCIR 601.

Really? Isn’t HD video in Rec.709? Shouldn’t video be consistent with images? Or do implementations really do this differently?

4. RGB Colors

There are several methods of directly specifying a color in terms of its RGBA channels.

4.1. The RGB functions: rgb() and rgba()

The rgb() function defines an RGB color by specifying the red, green, and blue channels directly. Its syntax is:

rgb() = rgb( <rgb-component>#{3} )
rgba() = rgba( <rgb-component>#{3} , <alpha-value> )
<rgb-component> = <number> | <percentage>
<alpha-value> = <number> | <percentage>

The three <rgb-component>s specify the red, green, and blue channels of the color, respectively. 0% represents the minimum value for that color channel in the sRGB gamut, and 100% represents the maximum value. A <number> is equivalent to a <percentage>, but with a different range: 0 again represents the minimum value for the color channel, but 255 represents the maximum. These values come from the fact that many graphics engines store the color channels internally as a single byte, which can hold integers between 0 and 255. However, the CSS syntax allows full <number>s, not just <integer>s, for authoring convenience.

Some devices can output colors technically outside of the sRGB gamut, represented by channels with values less than 0% or greater than 100%. For this reason, values outside of the 0%-100% range are allowed, but are clamped to the device’s gamut.)

The transfer function is undefined outside the range 0% to 100%.

The final argument, the <alpha-value>, specifies the alpha of the color. If given as a <number>, the useful range of the value is 0 (representing a fully transparent color) to 1 (representing a fully opaque color). If given as a <percentage>, 0% represents a fully transparent color, while 100% represents a fully opaque color. Values outside these ranges are not invalid, but are clamped to the ranges defined here at computed-value time. If omitted, it defaults to 100%.

4.2. The RGB hexadecimal notations: #RRGGBB

The CSS hex color notation allows a color to be specified by giving the channels as hexadecimal numbers, which is similar to how colors are often written directly in computer code. It’s also shorter than writing the same color out in rgb() notation.

The syntax of a <hex-color> is a <hash-token> token whose value consists of 3, 4, 6, or 8 hexadecimal digits. In other words, a hex color is written as a hash character, "#", followed by some number of digits 0-9 or letters a-f (the case of the letters doesn’t matter - #00ff00 is identical to #00FF00).

The number of hex digits given determines how to decode the hex notation into an RGB color:

6 digits
The first pair of digits, interpreted as a hexadecimal number, specifies the red channel of the color, where 00 represents the minimum value and ff (255 in decimal) represents the maximum. The next pair of digits, interpreted in the same way, specifies the green channel, and the last pair specifies the blue. The alpha channel of the color is fully opaque.
In other words, #00ff00 represents the same color as rgb(0, 255, 0) (a lime green).
8 digits
The first 6 digits are interpreted identically to the 6-digit notation. The last pair of digits, interpreted as a hexadecimal number, specifies the alpha channel of the color, where 00 represents a fully transparent color and ff represent a fully opaque color.
In other words, #0000ffcc represents the same color as rgba(0, 0, 100%, 80%) (a slightly-transparent blue).
3 digits
This is a shorter variant of the 6-digit notation. The first digit, interpreted as a hexadecimal number, specifies the red channel of the color, where 0 represents the minimum value and f represents the maximum. The next two digits represent the green and blue channels, respectively, in the same way. The alpha channel of the color is fully opaque.
This syntax is often explained by saying that it’s identical to a 6-digit notation obtained by "duplicating" all of the digits. For example, the notation #123 specifies the same color as the notation #112233. This method of specifying a color has lower "resolution" than the 6-digit notation; there are only 4096 possible colors expressible in the 3-digit hex syntax, as opposed to approximately 17 million in 6-digit hex syntax.
4 digits
This is a shorter variant of the 8-digit notation, "expanded" in the same way as the 3-digit notation is. The first digit, interpreted as a hexadecimal number, specifies the red channel of the color, where 0 represents the minimum value and f represents the maximum. The next three digits represent the green, blue, and alpha channels, respectively.

5. Named Colors

In addition to the various numeric syntaxes for <color>s, CSS defines a large set of named colors that can be used instead, so that common colors can be written and read more easily. A <named-color> is written as an <ident>, accepted anywhere a <color> is. As usual for CSS-defined <ident>s, all of these keywords are case-insensitive.

16 of CSS’s named colors come from HTML originally: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy, olive, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow. Most of the rest come from one version of the X11 color system, used in Unix-derived systems to specify colors for the console. (Two special color values, transparent and currentcolor, are specially defined in their own sections.)

Note: The history of the X11 color system is interesting, and was excellently summarized by Alex Sexton in his talk “Peachpuffs and Lemonchiffons”.

The following table defines all of the opaque named colors, by giving equivalent numeric specifications in the other color syntaxes.

Named Numeric Color name Hex rgb Decimal
aliceblue #f0f8ff 240,248,255
antiquewhite #faebd7 250,235,215
aqua #00ffff 0,255,255
aquamarine #7fffd4 127,255,212
azure #f0ffff 240,255,255
beige #f5f5dc 245,245,220
bisque #ffe4c4 255,228,196
black #000000 0,0,0
blanchedalmond #ffebcd 255,235,205
blue #0000ff 0,0,255
blueviolet #8a2be2 138,43,226
brown #a52a2a 165,42,42
burlywood #deb887 222,184,135
cadetblue #5f9ea0 95,158,160
chartreuse #7fff00 127,255,0
chocolate #d2691e 210,105,30
coral #ff7f50 255,127,80
cornflowerblue #6495ed 100,149,237
cornsilk #fff8dc 255,248,220
crimson #dc143c 220,20,60
cyan #00ffff 0,255,255
darkblue #00008b 0,0,139
darkcyan #008b8b 0,139,139
darkgoldenrod #b8860b 184,134,11
darkgray #a9a9a9 169,169,169
darkgreen #006400 0,100,0
darkgrey #a9a9a9 169,169,169
darkkhaki #bdb76b 189,183,107
darkmagenta #8b008b 139,0,139
darkolivegreen #556b2f 85,107,47
darkorange #ff8c00 255,140,0
darkorchid #9932cc 153,50,204
darkred #8b0000 139,0,0
darksalmon #e9967a 233,150,122
darkseagreen #8fbc8f 143,188,143
darkslateblue #483d8b 72,61,139
darkslategray #2f4f4f 47,79,79
darkslategrey #2f4f4f 47,79,79
darkturquoise #00ced1 0,206,209
darkviolet #9400d3 148,0,211
deeppink #ff1493 255,20,147
deepskyblue #00bfff 0,191,255
dimgray #696969 105,105,105
dimgrey #696969 105,105,105
dodgerblue #1e90ff 30,144,255
firebrick #b22222 178,34,34
floralwhite #fffaf0 255,250,240
forestgreen #228b22 34,139,34
fuchsia #ff00ff 255,0,255
gainsboro #dcdcdc 220,220,220
ghostwhite #f8f8ff 248,248,255
gold #ffd700 255,215,0
goldenrod #daa520 218,165,32
gray #808080 128,128,128
green #008000 0,128,0
greenyellow #adff2f 173,255,47
grey #808080 128,128,128
honeydew #f0fff0 240,255,240
hotpink #ff69b4 255,105,180
indianred #cd5c5c 205,92,92
indigo #4b0082 75,0,130
ivory #fffff0 255,255,240
khaki #f0e68c 240,230,140
lavender #e6e6fa 230,230,250
lavenderblush #fff0f5 255,240,245
lawngreen #7cfc00 124,252,0
lemonchiffon #fffacd 255,250,205
lightblue #add8e6 173,216,230
lightcoral #f08080 240,128,128
lightcyan #e0ffff 224,255,255
lightgoldenrodyellow #fafad2 250,250,210
lightgray #d3d3d3 211,211,211
lightgreen #90ee90 144,238,144
lightgrey #d3d3d3 211,211,211
lightpink #ffb6c1 255,182,193
lightsalmon #ffa07a 255,160,122
lightseagreen #20b2aa 32,178,170
lightskyblue #87cefa 135,206,250
lightslategray #778899 119,136,153
lightslategrey #778899 119,136,153
lightsteelblue #b0c4de 176,196,222
lightyellow #ffffe0 255,255,224
lime #00ff00 0,255,0
limegreen #32cd32 50,205,50
linen #faf0e6 250,240,230
magenta #ff00ff 255,0,255
maroon #800000 128,0,0
mediumaquamarine #66cdaa 102,205,170
mediumblue #0000cd 0,0,205
mediumorchid #ba55d3 186,85,211
mediumpurple #9370db 147,112,219
mediumseagreen #3cb371 60,179,113
mediumslateblue #7b68ee 123,104,238
mediumspringgreen #00fa9a 0,250,154
mediumturquoise #48d1cc 72,209,204
mediumvioletred #c71585 199,21,133
midnightblue #191970 25,25,112
mintcream #f5fffa 245,255,250
mistyrose #ffe4e1 255,228,225
moccasin #ffe4b5 255,228,181
navajowhite #ffdead 255,222,173
navy #000080 0,0,128
oldlace #fdf5e6 253,245,230
olive #808000 128,128,0
olivedrab #6b8e23 107,142,35
orange #ffa500 255,165,0
orangered #ff4500 255,69,0
orchid #da70d6 218,112,214
palegoldenrod #eee8aa 238,232,170
palegreen #98fb98 152,251,152
paleturquoise #afeeee 175,238,238
palevioletred #db7093 219,112,147
papayawhip #ffefd5 255,239,213
peachpuff #ffdab9 255,218,185
peru #cd853f 205,133,63
pink #ffc0cb 255,192,203
plum #dda0dd 221,160,221
powderblue #b0e0e6 176,224,230
purple #800080 128,0,128
rebeccapurple #663399 102,51,153
red #ff0000 255,0,0
rosybrown #bc8f8f 188,143,143
royalblue #4169e1 65,105,225
saddlebrown #8b4513 139,69,19
salmon #fa8072 250,128,114
sandybrown #f4a460 244,164,96
seagreen #2e8b57 46,139,87
seashell #fff5ee 255,245,238
sienna #a0522d 160,82,45
silver #c0c0c0 192,192,192
skyblue #87ceeb 135,206,235
slateblue #6a5acd 106,90,205
slategray #708090 112,128,144
slategrey #708090 112,128,144
snow #fffafa 255,250,250
springgreen #00ff7f 0,255,127
steelblue #4682b4 70,130,180
tan #d2b48c 210,180,140
teal #008080 0,128,128
thistle #d8bfd8 216,191,216
tomato #ff6347 255,99,71
turquoise #40e0d0 64,224,208
violet #ee82ee 238,130,238
wheat #f5deb3 245,222,179
white #ffffff 255,255,255
whitesmoke #f5f5f5 245,245,245
yellow #ffff00 255,255,0
yellowgreen #9acd32 154,205,50

Note: this list of colors and their definitions is a superset of the list of named colors defined by SVG 1.1.

For historical reasons, this is also referred to as the X11 color set.

5.1. The transparent keyword

The keyword transparent specifies a transparent black color; that is, a color with its red, green, and blue channels all set to the minimum value and its alpha channel set to full transparency, equivalent to rgba(0, 0, 0, 0). It is a type of <named-color>.

5.2. The currentcolor keyword

The keyword currentcolor takes its value from the value of the color property on the same element. This happens at used-value time, which means that if the value is inherited, it’s inherited as currentcolor, not as the value of the color property, so descendants will use their own color property to resolve it.

If currentcolor is used as the value of the color property, it instead takes its value from the inherited value of the color property.

Here’s a simple example showing how to use the currentcolor keyword:
.foo {
  color: red;
  background-color: currentcolor;
}

This is equivalent to writing:

.foo {
  color: red;
  background-color: red;
}
For example, the text-emphasis-color property [CSS3-TEXT-DECOR], whose initial value is currentcolor, by default matches the text color even as the color property changes across elements.
<p><em>Some <strong>really</strong> emphasized text.</em>
<style>
p { color: black; }
em { text-emphasis: dot; }
strong { color: red; }
</style>

In the above example, the emphasis marks would be black over the text "Some" and "emphasized text", but red over the text "really".

Note: Multi-word keywords in CSS usually separate their component words with hyphens. currentcolor doesn’t, because it was originally introduced in SVG as a special attribute value spelled "currentColor", rather than a CSS value. Only later did CSS pick it up, at which point the capitalization stopped mattering, as CSS keywords are case-insensitive.

6. HSL Colors: hsl() and hsla() functions

The RGB system for specifying colors, while convenient for machines and graphic libraries, is often regarded as very difficult for humans to gain an intuitive grasp on. It’s not easy to tell, for example, how to alter an RGB color to produce a lighter variant of the same hue.

There are several other color schemes possible. One such is the HSL color scheme, which is much more intuitive to use, but still maps easily back to RGB colors.

HSL colors are specified as a triplet of hue, saturation, and lightness. The syntax of the hsl() function is:

hsl() = hsl( <hue>, <percentage>, <percentage> )
hsla() = hsla( <hue>, <percentage>, <percentage>, <alpha-value> )
<hue> = <number> | <angle>

The first argument specifies the hue. Hue is represented as an angle of the color circle (the rainbow, twisted around into a circle). The angle 0deg represents red (as does 360deg, 720deg, etc.), and the rest of the hues are spread around the circle, so 120deg represents green, 240deg represents blue, etc. Because this value is so often given in degrees, the argument can also be given as a number, which is interpreted as a number of degrees.

The next two arguments are the saturation and lightness, respectively. For saturation, 100% is a fully-saturated, bright color, and 0% is a fully-unsaturated gray. For lightness, 50% represents the "normal" color, while 100% is white and 0% is black. If the saturation or lightness is less than 0% or the lightness is greater than 100%, they are clipped to those values before being converted to an RGB color. Some output devices may support saturations greater than 100%, just as they support RGB values greater than 100%. If the saturation exceeds the output device’s gamut, it must be clipped to that device’s gamut before being converted to an RGB color. This clipping should preserve the hue of the color (that is, it’s shouldn’t be the same thing as clipping an RGB component to the device’s gamut), but this specification does not define how to do so.

The final argument specifies the alpha channel of the color. It’s interpreted identically to the fourth argument of the rgba() function. If omitted, it defaults to 100%.

For example, an ordinary red, the same color you would see from the keyword red or the hex notation #f00, is represented in HSL as hsl(0, 100%, 50%).

The advantage of HSL over RGB is that it is far more intuitive: one can guess at the colors they want, and then tweak. It is also easier to create sets of matching colors (by keeping the hue the same and varying the saturation and lightness).

For example, the following colors can all be generated off of the basic "green" hue, just by varying the other two arguments:
hsl(120, 100%, 50%) lime green
hsl(120, 100%, 25%) dark green
hsl(120, 100%, 75%) light green
hsl(120, 75%, 85%)  pastel green

6.1. Converting HSL colors to RGB colors

Converting an HSL color to RGB is straightforward mathematically. Here’s a simple implementation of the conversion algorithm in JavaScript. For simplicity, this algorithm assumes that the hue has been normalized to a number in the half-open range [0, 6), and the saturation and lightness have been normalized to the range [0, 1]. It returns an array of three numbers representing the red, green, and blue channels of the colors, normalized to the range [0, 1].

function hslToRgb(hue, sat, light) {
  if( light <= .5 ) {
    var t2 = light * (sat + 1);
  } else {
    var t2 = light + sat - (light * sat);
  }
  var t1 = light * 2 - t2;
  var r = hueToRgb(t1, t2, hue + 2);
  var g = hueToRgb(t1, t2, hue);
  var b = hueToRgb(t1, t2, hue - 2);
  return [r,g,b];
}

function hueToRgb(t1, t2, hue) {
  if(hue < 0) hue += 6;
  if(hue >= 6) hue -= 6;

  if(hue < 1) return (t2 - t1) * hue + t1;
  else if(hue < 3) return t2;
  else if(hue < 4) return (t2 - t1) * (4 - hue) + t1;
  else return t1;
}

6.2. Examples of HSL colors

The tables below illustrate a wide range of possible HSL colors. Each table represents one hue, selected at 30° intervals, to illustrate the common "core" hues: red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, magenta, and the six intermediary colors between these.

In each table, the X axis represents the saturation while the Y axis represents the lightness.

0° Reds
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
30° Red-Yellows (=Oranges)
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
60° Yellows
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
90° Yellow-Greens
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
120° Greens
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
150° Green-Cyans
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
180° Cyans
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
210° Cyan-Blues
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
240° Blues
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
270° Blue-Magentas
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
300° Magentas
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%
330° Magenta-Reds
Saturation
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
100%
88%
75%
63%
50%
38%
25%
13%
0%

7. HWB Colors: hwb() function

HWB (short for Hue-Whiteness-Blackness) is another method of specifying colors, similar to HSL, but often even easier for humans to work with. It describes colors with a starting hue, then a degree of whiteness and blackness to mix into that base hue.

Many color-pickers are based on the HWB color system, due to its intuitiveness.

This is a screenshot of Chrome’s color picker, shown when a user activates an <input type="color">. The outer wheel is used to select the hue, then the relative amounts of white and black are selected by clicking on the inner triangle.

The syntax of the hwb() function is:

hwb() = hwb( <hue>, <percentage>, <percentage> [, <alpha-value> ]? )

The first argument specifies the hue, and is interpreted identically to hsl().

The second argument specifies the amount of white to mix in, as a percentage from 0% (no whiteness) to 100% (full whiteness). Similarly, the third argument specifies the amount of black to mix in, also from 0% (no blackness) to 100% (full blackness). Values outside of these ranges make the function invalid. If the sum of these two arguments is greater than 100%, then at computed-value time they are normalized to add up to 100%, with the same relative ratio.

The fourth argument specifies the alpha channel of the color. It’s interpreted identically to the fourth argument of the rgba() function. If omitted, it defaults to 100%.

The resulting color can be thought of conceptually as a mixture of paint in the chosen hue, white paint, and black paint, with the relative amounts of each determined by the percentages. If white+black is equal to 100% (after normalization), it defines an achromatic color, or some shade of gray, without any hint of the chosen hue.

7.1. Converting HWB colors to RGB colors

Converting an HWB color to RGB is straightforward, and related to how one converts HSL to RGB. The following Javascript implementation of the algorithm assumes that the white and black components have already been normalized, so their sum is no larger than 100%, and have been converted into numbers in the range [0,1].

function hwbToRgb(hue, white, black) {
  var rgb = hslToRgb(hue, 1, .5);
  for(var i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
    rgb[i] *= (1 - white - black);
    rgb[i] += white;
  }
  return rgb;
}

7.2. Examples of HWB Colors

0° Reds
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
30° Red-Yellows (Oranges)
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
60° Yellows
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
90° Yellow-Greens
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120° Greens
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
150° Green-Cyans
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
180° Cyans
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
210° Cyan-Blues
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
240° Blues
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
270° Blue-Magentas
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
300° Magentas
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
330° Magenta-Reds
W\B 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%

8. Device-independent Colors: Lab and LCH

Physical measurements of a color are typically expressed in a color space created in 1976 by the CIE, Lab. Color conversions from one device to another also use Lab as an intermediate step. Derived from human vision experiments, Lab represents the entire range of color that humans can see.

Lab is a rectangular coordinate system with a central Lightness axis. L=0 is deep black (no light at all) while L=100 is white (D50 white, a standardized daylight spectrum with a color temperature of 5000K). Usefully, L=50 is mid gray, by design: the Lab color space is intended to be perceptually uniform. The a and b axes convey hue; positive values along the a axis are red while negative values are the complementary color, green. Similarly positive values along the b axis are yellow and negative are the complementary blue/violet. Desaturated colors have small values of a and b and are close to the L axis; saturated colors lie far from the L axis.

D50 is also the whitepoint used for the profile connection space in ICC color interconversion, the values used in image editors which offer Lab editing, and the value used by physical measurement devices such as spectrometers, when they report measured colors in Lab. Conversion from colors specified using other white points is called a chromatic adaptation transform, which models the changes in the human visual system as we adapt to a new lighting condition. The Bradford algorithm is the industry standard chromatic adaptation transform, and is easy to calculate as it is a simple matrix multiplication.

In Lab if two colors have the same L value, they appear to have the same visual lightness – regardless of how different their hues are. This is different from HSL, where for example blue (#00F) and yellow (#FF0) have the same HSL lightness despite yellow being obviously far lighter than blue.

LCH has the same L axis as Lab, but uses polar coordinates C (chroma) and H (hue). C is the geometric distance from the L axis and H is the angle, in degrees, from the positive a axis.

The Lightness axis in Lab should not be confused with the L axis in HSL. For example, in HSL, the sRGB colors blue (#00F) and yellow (#FF0) have the same value of L even though visually, blue is much darker. In Lab, if two colors have the same measured L value, they have identical visual lightness. HSL and related polar RGB models were developed to give similar usability benefits for RGB that LCH gave to Lab.

8.1. Specifying Lab and LCH: the lab() and lch() functional notations

CSS allows colors to be directly expressed in Lab and LCH.
lab() = lab( <number>  <number>  <number>  [, <alpha-value>]?)

The first argument specifies the CIE Lightness, the second argument is a and the third is b. L is constrained to the range [0, 100] while a and b are signed values and theoretically unbounded (but in practice do not exceed ±160). There is an optional fourth alpha value, separated by a comma.

lch() = lch( <number>  <number>  <number> [, <alpha-value>]?)

The first argument specifies the CIE Lightness, the second argument is C and the third is H. L is constrained to the range [0, 100]. C is an unsigned number, theoretically unbounded (but in practice does not exceed 230). H is constrained to the range [0, 360). There is an optional fourth alpha value, separated by a comma.

Need to define handling for out of range numbers. Clip L, wrap H? Have also seen L up to 400, specifically for high dynamic range situations.

Need to decide what, if anything, to do for high dynamic range on luminance.

8.2. Converting sRGB colors to Lab colors

Conversion from sRGB to Lab requires several steps, although in practice all but the first step are linear calculations and can be combined.

  1. Convert from sRGB to linear-light sRGB (undo gamma correction)
  2. Convert from linear sRGB to CIE XYZ
  3. Convert from a D65 whitepoint (used by sRGB) to the D50 whitepoint used in Lab, with the Bradford transform
  4. Convert D50-adapted XYZ to Lab

There is sample JavaScript code for this conversion in Sample code for color conversions section.

8.3. Converting Lab colors to sRGB colors

Conversion from Lab to sRGB also requires multiple steps, and again in practice all but the last step are linear calculations and can be combined.

  1. Convert Lab to (D50-adapted) XYZ
  2. Convert from a D50 whitepoint (used by Lab) to the D65 whitepoint used in sRGB, with the Bradford transform
  3. Convert from (D65-adapted) CIE XYZ to linear sRGB
  4. Convert from linear-light sRGB to sRGB (do gamma correction)

8.4. Converting Lab colors to LCH colors

Conversion to LCH is trivial:

  1. H = atan2(b, a)
  2. C = sqrt(a^2 + b^2)
  3. L is the same

8.5. Converting LCH colors to Lab colors

Conversion to Lab is trivial:

  1. a = C cos(H)
  2. b = C sin(H)
  3. L is the same

9. Specifying Grays: the gray() functional notation

As decided at San Francisco, this syntax is an alias to Lab with a=b=0.

Grays are fully desaturated colors. The gray() functional notation simplifies specifying this common set of colors, so that only a single numerical parameter is required, and so that gray(50%) is a visual mid-gray (perceptually equidistant between black and white).

gray() = gray( <number>  [, <alpha-value>]? )

The first argument specifies the shade of gray, equal to the CIE Lightness, while the second optional argument specifies the alpha channel of the gray.

9.1. Converting gray colors to sRGB colors

Conversion from gray to sRGB requires multiple steps; in practice all but the last step are linear calculations and can be combined.

  1. Convert to Lab by setting L to the gray value, a and b to 0
  2. Convert Lab to XYZ
  3. Adapt from D50 to D65 (Bradford transform)
  4. Convert from (D65-adapted) CIE XYZ to linear sRGB
  5. Convert from linear-light sRGB to sRGB (do gamma correction)

10. Profiled, Device-dependent Colors

When the measured physical characteristics (such as the chromaticities of the primary colors it uses, or the colors produced in response to a given set of inputs) of a color space or a color-producing device are known, it is said to be characterised. This characterization information is stored in a profile. The most common type of color profile is defined by the International Color Consortium (ICC) [ICC].

If in addition adjustments have been made so that a device meets calibration targets such as white point, neutrality of greys, predictability and consistency of tone response, then it is said to be calibrated.

CSS allows colors to be specified by reference to a color profile. This could be for example a calibrated CMYK printer, or an RGB colorspace (such as ProPhoto , widely used by photographers), or any other color or monochrome output defice which has been characterized. In addition, for conveninnce, CSS provides two predefined RGB color spaces - DCI P3 [DCI-P3], which is a wide gamut space typical of current wide-gamut monitors, and Rec.2020 [[Rec.2020] which is a ultra-wide gamut space capable of representing almost all visible real-world colors. Both are broadcast industry standards.

This example specifies four profiled colors: for a standard CMYK press, for a wide-gamut seven-ink printer, for ProPhoto RGB, and for the P3 standard RGB space.
color(swopc, 0 206 190 77);
color(indigo, 24 160 86 42 0 18 31);
color(prophoto, 233 150 122);
color(P3, 97 253 36);

All but the predefined colorpace example also need a matching profile at-rule somewhere in the stylesheet, to connect the name with the profile data.

@color-profile swopc {
  src: url('http://example.org/swop-coated.icc'');}
@color-profile indigo {
  src: url('http://example.org/indigo-seven.icc'');}
profile prophoto {
  src: url('http://example.org/prophoto.icc'');}

color() fallback should be like font list fallback, as decided at San Francisco. Recursive?

10.1. Specifying profiled colors: the color() function

The color function takes an indentifier as the first parameter, followed by either as many numerical parameters as are needed (three for an RGB colorspace, four for CMYK, one for greyscale, and so on) or a quoted string (for named color profiles). An optional, comma-separated alpha value is also supported. The identifier is either one of the predefined spaces (p3 or rec2020) or the name of a profile. An optional fallback may be specified (an sRGB color, or indeed another color() function).

Decided at San Francisco to add a larger set of common predefined spaceslike AdobeRGB, ProPhoto RGB, and so on. Also coated and uncoated swop, etc, etc. 
color() = color( <ident> , [<number>+ | <string>] [, <alpha-value>]? [, <fallback>]?)

If too many numbers are supplied, the first ones are used and the rest are silently ignored. If too few numbers are supplied, unspecified numbers are considered to be zero. This is convenient particularly for multichannel printers where the additional inks are spot colors or varnishes and not used for most colors.

Further define a fallback color, as decided at San Francisco. Can be an sRGB fallback or indeed another color() function.

Need to add choice of quoted string or number+, to allow for named color profiles.

10.2. Predefined colorspaces: dci-p3 and rec2020.

These two colorspaces are indicated by using the predefined identifiers dci-p3 or rec2020 in the color function. No <@color-profile> at-rule is needed for these predefined names; if one is supplied, it will be ignored.

The dci-p3 [DCI-P3] colorspace has the following characteristics:

Red chromaticity x=0.680 y=0.320
Green chromaticity x=0.265 y=0.690
Blue chromaticity x=0.150 y=0.060
White chromaticity x=0.3127 y=0.3290 (D65)
Transfer function 1/2.6

The defining spec for dci-p3 is not freely available. It costs USD 240. There is a Wikipedia article, which is non-authoritative and of unknown accuracy (particularly for the transfer function and viewing conditions).

DCI transfer function for P3 is gamma 1/2.6 while Apple P3 displays use gamma 1/2.2.

The rec2020 [Rec.2020] colorspace has the following characteristics:

Red chromaticity x=0.708 y=0.292
Green chromaticity x=0.170 y=0.797
Blue chromaticity x=0.131 y=0.046
White chromaticity x=0.3127 y=0.3290 (D65)
Transfer function see below

rec2020 transfer function has the same form as the one for sRGB, but with the constants at higher precision to cope with 10 or 12-bit components:

 E < β ? 4.5 * E : α * Math.pow(E, 0.45) - (α - 1);

Where α=1.09929682680944 and β=0.018053968510807 .

10.2.1. Converting predefined colorspaces to Lab

For both predefined color spaces, conversion to Lab requires several steps, although in practice all but the first step are linear calculations and can be combined.

  1. Convert from gamma-corrected RGB to linear-light RGB (undo gamma correction)
  2. Convert from linear RGB to CIE XYZ
  3. Convert from a D65 whitepoint (used by both dci-p3 and rec2020) to the D50 whitepoint used in Lab, with the Bradford transform
  4. Convert D50-adapted XYZ to Lab

Canvas proposes adding a 16bit half-float linear rec2020 space

10.2.2. Converting Lab to predefined colorspaces

Conversion from Lab to dci-p3 or rec2020 also requires multiple steps, and again in practice all but the last step are linear calculations and can be combined.

  1. Convert Lab to (D50-adapted) XYZ
  2. Convert from a D50 whitepoint (used by Lab) to the D65 whitepoint used in sRGB, with the Bradford transform
  3. Convert from (D65-adapted) CIE XYZ to linear RGB
  4. Convert from linear-light RGB to RGB (do gamma correction)

Implementations may choose to implement these steps in some other way (for example, using an ICC profile with relative colorimetric rendering intent) provided the results are the same for colors inside the source and destination gamuts.

10.3. Specifying a color profile: the color-profile at-rule

The @color-profile rule is a group rule. It consists of the at-keyword '@color-profile' followed by a name, followed by a group rule body.

In a very similar way to the <@font-face. at-rule, the <@color-profile> at-rule has a name (which will be used inside the stylesheet), and a descriptor to point to the actual data (src, just like src in font-face.) The src descriptor takes a url() as it’s value.

Same-origin and CORS for src.

local() to use locally installed profiles. Profile stack like font-face rather than a single url. Avoid flash of uncalibrated color.

A third, optional descriptor defines the rendering intent to use when mapping colors from a larger to a smaller gamut.

This descriptor is only needed if the profile linked to has data for multiple rendering intents. There are four values for rendering intent [ICC]:

relative-colorimetric

Media-relative colorimetric is required to leave source colors that fall inside the destination medium gamut unchanged relative to the respective media white points. Source colors that are out of the destination medium gamut are mapped to colors on the gamut boundary using a variety of different methods.

Note: the media-relative colorimetric rendering intent is often used with black point compensation, where the source medium black point is mapped to the destination medium black point as well.

This method must map the source white point to the desination white point. If black point compensation is in use, the source black point must also be mapped to the destination black point. Adaptation algorithms should be used to adjust for the change in white point. Relative relationships of colors inside both source and destination gamuts should be preserved. Relative relationships of colors outside the destination gamut may be changed.

absolute-colorimetric

ICC-absolute colorimetric is required to leave source colors that fall inside the destination medium gamut unchanged relative to the adopted white (a perfect reflecting diffuser). Source colors that are out of the destination medium gamut are mapped to colors on the gamut boundary using a variety of different methods. This method produces the most accurate color matching of in-gamut colors, but will result in highlight clipping if the destination medium white point is lower than the source medium white point. For this reason it is recommended for use only in applications that need exact color matching and where highlight clipping is not a concern.

This method MUST disable white point matching and black point matching when converting colors. In general, this option is not recommended except for testing purposes.

perceptual

This method is often the preferred choice for images, especially when there are substantial differences between the source and destination (such as a screen display image reproduced on a reflection print). It takes the colors of the source image and re-optimizes the appearance for the destination medium using proprietary methods. This re-optimization may result in colors within both the source and destination gamuts being changed, although perceptual transforms are supposed to maintain the basic artistic intent of the original in the reproduction. They will not attempt to correct errors in the source image.

With v2 ICC profiles there is no specified perceptual reference medium, which can cause interoperability problems. When v2 ICC profiles are used it may be safer to use the media-relative colorimetric rendering intent with black point compensation, instead of the perceptual rendering intent, unless the specific source and destination profiles to be used have been checked to ensure the combination produces the desired result.

This method should maintain relative color values among the pixels as they are mapped to the target device gamut. This method may change pixel values that were originally within the target device gamut, in order to avoid hue shifts and discontinuities and to preserve as much as possible the overall appearance of the scene.

saturation

This option was created to preserve the relative saturation (chroma) of the original, and to keep solid colors pure. However, it experienced interoperability problems like the perceptual intent, and as solid color preservation is not amenable to a reference medium solution using v4 profiles does not solve the problem. Use of this rendering intent is not recommended unless the specific source and destination profiles to be used have been checked to ensure the combination produces the desired result. This option should preserve the relative saturation (chroma) values of the original pixels. Out of gamut colors should be converted to colors that have the same saturation but fall just inside the gamut.

RESOLVED: Do black point compensation when converting from profile to another. This will depend on the rendering intent and is mentioned there already. Does that suffice? What about black point compensation for the flare correction built into sRGB?

FIX ME: MISSING

11. Working Color Space

Resolved at San Francisco to add a working-color-space at-rule, which affects the entire document. Compositing, interpolation, blending use this. Initial value is sRGB. linear-sRGB, p3, rec2020, and lab were also discussed as values. Chris to read the canvas spec to see what it does there, particularly for the optimal value.

12. Device-dependent CMYK Colors: the device-cmyk() function

While screens typically display colors directly with RGB pixels, printers often represent colors in different ways. In particular, one of the most common print-based ways of representing colors is with CMYK: a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black which yields a particular color on that device. The device-cmyk() function allows authors to specify a color in this way:

device-cmyk() = device-cmyk( <cmyk-component>#{4} , <alpha-value>? , <color>? )
<cmyk-component> = <number> | <percentage>

The arguments of the device-cmyk() function specify the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black components, in order, as a number between 0 and 1 or a percentage between 0% and 100%. These two usages are equivalent, and map to each other linearly. Values less than 0 or 0%, or greater than 1 or 100%, are not invalid; instead, they are clamped to 0/0% or 1/100%.

The fifth argument specifies the alpha channel of the color. It’s interpreted identically to the fourth argument of the rgba() function. If omitted, it defaults to 100%.

The sixth argument specifies the fallback color, used when the user agent doesn’t know how to accurately transform the CMYK color to RGB. If omitted, it defaults to the CMYK color naively converted to RGBA.

RESOLVED: If you accurately describe the output device’s color profile in an @color-profile rule then a sane implementation will not alter your colors so this is sufficient as a replacement for device-cmyk in general and provides a good RGB fallback automatically.

Typically, print-based applications will actually store the used colors as CMYK, and send them to the printer in that form. Unfortunately, CSS cannot do that; various CSS features require an RGB color, so that compositing/blending/etc. can be done. As such, CMYK colors must be converted to an equivalent RGB color. This is not trivial, like the conversion from HSL or HWB to RGB; the precise conversion depends on the precise characteristics of the output device.

If the user agent has information about the output device such that it believes it can accurately convert the CMYK color to a correct RGB color, the computed value of the device-cmyk() function must be that RGBA color. Otherwise, the computed value must be the fallback color.

For example, the following colors are equivalent (under the default conversion listed above):
color: device-cmyk(0, 81%, 81%, 30%);
color: rgb(178, 34, 34);
color: firebrick;

Note: these colors might not match precisely if the browser knows a more precise conversion between CMYK and RGB colors. It’s recommended that if authors use any CMYK colors in their document, that they use only CMYK colors in their document to avoid any color-matching difficulties.

12.1. Converting Between Uncalibrated CMYK and RGB-Based Colors

This section now needs to clearly distinguish between calibrated (icc-based) color on the one hand, and uncalibrated device-cmyk on the other. This particularly affects conversion to and from RGB.

While most colors defined in this specification are directly compatible with RGBA, and thus can be mechanically and consistently converted back and forth with it, CMYK colors are not directly compatible; a given CMYK color will map to various RGBA colors depending on the physical characteristics of the output device.

Ideally, the user agent will be aware of the output device’s color profiles for RGBA and CMYK. If this is true, then the user agent must convert between CMYK and RGBA colors (and vice versa) by first converting the color into an appropriate device-independent color space, such as CIELab, and then converting into the output color space, using the appropriate color profiles for each operation.

This is not always possible, however. In that case, the user agent must use the following naive conversion algorithms.

To naively convert from CMYK to RGBA:

If a fallback color was specified, return that color (converting it to RGB as well, if necessary). Otherwise:

To naively convert from RGBA to CMYK:

13. Modifying Colors: the color-mod() function

When specifying a color scheme for a site, one often wants a color that is close to another color, but slightly different. This becomes more important when CSS Variables are used, where an author may wish to define a "base" color, and then produce an array of slightly modified colors to use elsewhere.

The color-mod() function takes an existing color, and applies zero or more "color adjusters" to it, which specify how to manipulate the color in some way.

Several of the color adjusters straightforwardly manipulate the color as an RGB, HSL, or HWB color, as if you’d specified a color in the appropriate syntax with one argument slightly modified. Others perform more complex manipulations of the color, such as blending it or finding contrasting colors.

Additionally, the color-mod() function defines a new, more intuitive syntax for specifying named colors, based on CNS.

Actually add the CNS thing.

color-mod() = color( [ <color> | <hue> ] <color-adjuster>* )
<color-adjuster> =
    [red( | green( | blue( | alpha( | a(] ['+' | '-']? [<number> | <percentage>] ) |
    [red( | green( | blue( | alpha( | a(] '*' <percentage> ) |
    rgb( ['+' | '-'] [<number> | <percentage>]{3} ) |
    rgb( ['+' | '-'] <hash-token> ) |
    rgb( '*' <percentage> ) |

    [hue( | h(] ['+' | '-' | '*']? <angle> ) |
    [saturation( | s(] ['+' | '-' | '*']? <percentage> ) |
    [lightness( | l(] ['+' | '-' | '*']? <percentage> ) |
    [whiteness( | w(] ['+' | '-' | '*']? <percentage> ) |
    [blackness( | b(] ['+' | '-' | '*']? <percentage> ) |

    tint( <percentage> ) |
    shade( <percentage> ) |

    blend( <color> <percentage> [rgb | hsl | hwb]? ) |
    blenda( <color> <percentage> [rgb | hsl | hwb]? ) |

    contrast( <percentage>? )

The first argument specifies the base color. If a <hue> is given, the base color is the HSL color with the given <hue>, 100% saturation, and 50% lightness (in other words, the fully-saturated color with the given hue).

After the base color, zero or more <color-adjuster>s can be specified. Each <color-adjuster> modifies the color in some way, passing a new base color to the next <color-adjuster> in the list. The same <color-adjuster> can be specified more than once in the list, such as color(red s(- 10%) s(- 10%)); each instance just modifies the color appropriately (in this case, producing hsl(0deg, 80%, 50%)).

There are several classes of <color-adjuster>s with various effects, defined in the following sections.

The computed value of a color-mod() function is the color produced by applying all the <color-adjuster>s to the base color.

Note: While scaling can be specified without any spaces, like lightness(*150%), adding/subtracting must be done with spaces after the +/-, or else the +/- will be interpreted as part of the number by the CSS parser.

An achromatic color doesn’t have a unique hue, so some <color-adjuster>s that would make the color no longer achromatic (such as s(50%)) have special behavior for achromatic colors, as described in each adjuster’s description. However, it is possible for, within the space of a single color-mod() function, for the base color to be chromatic, an adjuster to make it achromatic, and a following adjuster to make it chromatic again, with an author having the reasonable expectation that the hue is maintained.

To allow this, during the evaluation of a color-mod() function’s <color-adjuster>s, rather than storing intermediate colors as a 4-tuple of red, green, blue, and alpha, as usual for CSS colors, intermediate colors must be stored as a 5-tuple of red, green, blue, alpha, and hue angle, where the hue angle may be null for some colors and after some operations.

Whenever an operation interprets an achromatic color in HSL or HWB space, if the color has a non-null hue angle, that hue must be used for the color’s HSL/HWB interpretation. (Individual operations define how to handle null hue angles.)

If the base color is achromatic, the hue angle is initially null.

For example, here’s a possible color-mod() function that lightens and brightens the base color:
color(X w(+ 20%) s(+ 20%))

If X is a color like blue, this works in the expected way - after each operation, the color is still chromatic (and the return value is #33f).

On the other hand, if X is a greenish gray like #787, which is represented in HWB as hwb(120deg, 44%, 50%), the first operation will boost the sum of white and black to greater than 100%, making it an achromatic gray (#8f8f8f, to be specific).

However, the color-mod() function remembers that the hue of the color was originally 120deg, so when the second operation saturates the color, it will result in a greenish-gray again (hsl(120deg, 20%, 56%), slightly lighter and brighter than the original color, which is what was intended).

More possibilities:

13.1. RGBA Adjustment

The most basic set of <color-adjuster>s modify the color’s channels directly, altering the amount of red, green, blue, or alpha in the color.

[red( | green( | blue( | alpha( | a(] ['+' | '-']? [<number> | <percentage>] )
[red( | green( | blue( | alpha( | a(] * <percentage> )
Sets or adjust the red, blue, green, or alpha channels of the base color.

If there is no operator, the given channel is set to the given value.

If the operator is + or -, the given channel is interpreted as the matching type (<number> or <percentage>) and then incremented or decremented by the given value.

If the operator is *, the given channel is multipled by the given value.

rgb( ['+' | '-']? [<number> | <percentage>]{3} )
Adjusts the base color in the red, green, and blue channels simultaneously. All three channels are interpreted as the matching type (<number> or <percentage>) and then incremented or decremented by the given values, with the first value adjusting the red channel, the second value adjusting the green channel, and the third value adjusting the blue channel.
rgb( ['+' | '-'] <hash-token> )
Identical to the previous clause, except that the adjustments to the three channels are specified in hexadecimal format; the <hash-token> is interpreted as a hex color, then the red, green, and blue channels of the color are applied as adjustments to the base color.
For example, in color(red rgb(+ #004400)), the base color is red (#ff0000). The red and blue channels aren’t adjusted at all (those channels in the given color are both 0), and the green channel is increased by 4416, resulting in a final color of #ff4400.
rgb( * <percentage> )
The red, green, and blue channels of the base color are multiplied by the given value.

All <color-adjuster>s in this section, except for alpha() and a(), set the hue angle to null if the resulting color is achromatic.

13.2. HSL/HWB Adjustment

The hsl() and hwb() functions provide alternative ways to specify colors numerically, intended to be easier and more intuitive for humans. Similarly, the color-mod() function allows a color to be adjusted in these "virtual channels".

[hue( | h(] ['+' | '-' | *]? <angle> )
Sets or adjusts the hue of the base color, when base color is interpreted as an HSL color.

If there is no operator, the hue is set to the given value, regardless of what the hue angle was previously.

Otherwise, the hue is incremented or decremented, as appropriate, by the given value. If the hue angle is null, the adjuster instead does nothing.

[saturation( | s(] ['+' | '-' | *]? <percentage> )
[lightness( | l(] ['+' | '-' | *]? <percentage> )
[whiteness( | w(] ['+' | '-' | *]? <percentage> )
[blackness( | b(] ['+' | '-' | *]? <percentage> )
Sets or adjusts the saturation, lightness, whiteness, or blackness of the base color, when base color is interpreted as an HSL or HWB color, as appropriate.

If there is no operator, the given channel is set to the given value.

If the operator is + or -, the given channel is incremented or decremented by the given value.

If the operator is *, the given channel is multiplied by the given value.

If the hue angle is null, the operation is s() or saturation(), and the adjuster would make the saturation greater than 0%, it instead does nothing.

If the hue angle is null, the operation is w(), white(), b(), or black(), and the adjuster would make the sum of whiteness and blackness less than 100%, it additionally adjusts the opposite HWB channel to make the sum equal to 100%. (That is, color(white w(- 20%)) would represent the same color as hwb(0, 80%, 20%).)

13.3. Tints and Shades: the tint and shade adjusters

While the color-mod() function does allow HWB adjustment of colors, the peculiarities of how HWB is defined make it more difficult than it should be to just define a lighter or darker version of a color. The tint and shade adjusters fix this, by simply mixing the base color with white or black.

''tint( <percentage> )''
Mixes the base color with pure white to produce a lighter version of the base color.

Specifying a <percentage> less than 0% or greater than 100% is a syntax error, and makes the function invalid.

Linearly interpolate the red, green, and blue channels of the base color with the red, green, and blue channels of pure white (rgb(255,255,255)), where 0% returns the base color and 100% returns pure white.

Note: tint(X%) is identical to blend(white X% rgb).

''shade( <percentage> )''
Mixes the base color with pure black to produce a darker version of the base color.

Identical to the previous clause, except the base color is mixed with pure black (rgb(0,0,0)) rather than pure white.

13.4. Color Blending: the blend and blenda adjusters

The tint() and shade() adjusters are common cases of the more general blend() adjuster, which mixes the base color with an arbitrary color.

''blend( <color> <percentage> [rgb | hsl | hwb]? )''
Mixes the base color with the given color to produce an intermediate color.

Specifying a <percentage> less than 0% or greater than 100% is a syntax error, and makes the function invalid.

The final argument specifies which color space to blend the colors in, defaulting to rgb if not specified. Both the base color and the given color are interpreted as colors in the given color space, then the components are blended.

For example, color(yellow blend(blue 50%)) blends yellow (#ffff00) with blue (#0000ff) equally, resulting in #808080, a medium gray.

On the other hand, color(yellow blend(blue 50% hsl)) blends the same colors in HSL space, where yellow is hsl(60, 100%, 50%) and blue is hsl(240, 100%, 50%), which results in hsl(150, 100%, 50%), a fully-saturated shade of green.

To determine the resulting color, interpret the base color and the given color in the appropriate color space (RGB, HSL, or HWB). Linearly interpolate each of the channels of the colors according to the given <percentage>, where 0% produces the specified <color> and 100% produces the base color.

If the color space is hsl or hwb, interpolate the hue channel either clockwise or counterclockwise, whichever results in a shorter "path" between the two hue angles. If the two hue angles are on opposite sides of the hue circle (separated by 180 degrees), take the clockwise path.

If the hue angle is null for one of the colors but not the other, treat the null hue angle as being equal to the non-null hue angle for the purpose of this adjuster. If both hue angles are null, the resulting color’s hue angle is null as well.

Note: The choice of how to transition when the difference is 180deg is arbitrary, and was chosen merely to provide an unambiguous answer. To achieve counter-clockwise behavior, adjust either color’s hue angle by a small amount toward the desired direction.

For example, blending yellow (hue angle 60deg) with 50% purple (hue angle 300deg) results in red (hue angle 0deg), not cyan (hue angle 180deg), even though 60*50% + 300*50% == 180, because the distance between the two colors when moving counter-clockwise is only 120 degrees, as opposed to 240 degrees when going clockwise.
''blenda( <color> <percentage> [rgb | hsl | hwb]? )''
Identical to the previous clause, except it pays attention to the alpha channel of the two colors (blend() just preserves the alpha channel of the base color).

Let w be the specified <percentage>, rescaled to the range [-1,1], where 0% maps to -1 and 100% maps to 1. Let a be the difference of the alpha channels of the base color and the specified <color>, also rescaled to the range [-1,1], where -100% (0% base color alpha and 100% specified color alpha) maps to -1 and 100% maps to 1.

If w * a == -1, let new weight equal w. Otherwise, let new weight equal (w + a) / (1 + w*a).

Reinterpret new weight as a percentage in the range [0%, 100%], where -1 maps to 0% and 1 maps to 100%. Calculate the result color as if blend() had been specified, using the new weight percentage instead of the specified <percentage>, and set the alpha channel of the result color to the average of the alpha channels of the base color and the specified <color>.

This blends the two colors in a way that pays attention to alpha, similar to how compositing does. Is there a better formula? The current one was determined empirically to give good results, but isn’t motivated by any theory.

Should we swap the defaults, so blend() does the alpha blending, and another name (or maybe another parameter) ignores alpha like blend() currently does? Check with definitions in CSS compositing and blending module.

13.5. Guaranteeing Adequate Contrast: the contrast adjuster

Guaranteeing that foreground and background colors contrast sufficiently is important, but even if one knows the mathematical definition of "appropriate contrast", it’s not trivial to calculate and figure out whether two arbitrary colors are good enough. The contrast() adjuster makes this easy, automatically computing a color that is sufficiently contrasting with the base color to satisfy accessibility guidelines.

''contrast( <percentage>? )''
Finds a color that contrasts with the base color suffficiently to satisfy accessibility guidelines, using the definition of "contrast" given by WCAG 2.0 Guideline 1.4.3.

The <percentage> specifies the desired similarity between the base color and the returned color. 0% will return the minimum-contrast color (the closest color to the base color that still contrasts sufficiently), while 100% will return the maximum-contrast color (white or black, whichever contrasts the base color more) Specifying a value less than 0% or greater than 100% is invalid and a syntax error. If omitted, the <percentage> defaults to 100%.

  1. Compute the luminance of the base color. If it’s less than .5, the maximum-contrast color is hwb(X, 100%, 0%), where X is the hue angle of the base color. Otherwise, the maximum-contrast color is hwb(X, 0%, 100%), where X is the hue angle of the base color.

    Note: In other words, the maximum-contrast color is either white or black, but with the hue set up correctly for the next step’s linear interpolation.

  2. Looking only at colors that are linear interpolations in HWB space (a la the blend() adjuster) between the base color and the maximum-contrast color, find the color with the smallest contrast ratio with the base color that is greater than 4.5. This is the minimum-contrast color. If there is no color with contrast ratio greather than 4.5, return the maximum-contrast color immediately.

    Note: 4.5 is the contrast ratio required by WCAG for Level AA contrast.

    Note: Using this method, the contrast ratio will be monotonically non-increasing as you go from the maximum-contrast color to the base color, so a simple binary search will identify the minimum-contrast color in a small number of iterations.

  3. Blend the minimum-contrast color and maximum-contrast color according to the specified <percentage>, as if ''color(maximum-contrast color blend(minimum-contrast color <percentage> hwb))'' were specified. Return the blended color.

To compute the luminance of a color:

The code below is only for sRGB, and duplicates the more general code in the conversions appendix.

  1. Scale the red, green, and blue channels of the color to the range [0,1].
  2. For each channel, if the channel’s value is less than or equal to 0.03928, set the channel’s value to channel / 12.92. Otherwise, set the channel’s value to ((channel + 0.055) / 1.055) ^ 2.4.

    Note: This reverses the logarithmic power scaling of the sRGB gamut, so the value of the channel is linear with respect to the amount of light produced.

  3. The luminance is:

    0.2126*R + 0.7152*G + 0.0722*B

    where R, G, and B are the adjusted red, green, and blue channels from the previous step.

Note: The luminance of a color within the sRGB gamut is contained within the range [0,1], where black is 0 and white is 1.

To compute the contrast ratio of two colors:

  1. Compute the luminance of both colors.
  2. The contrast ratio is:

    (L1 + 0.05) / (L2 + 0.05)

    where L1 is the larger of the two luminances, and L2 is the smaller.

Note: The contrast ratio of two colors is contained within the range [1,21], where two identical colors are 1 and the ratio of white and black is 21.

14. Transparency: the opacity property

Opacity can be thought of as a postprocessing operation. Conceptually, after the element (including its descendants) is rendered into an RGBA offscreen image, the opacity setting specifies how to blend the offscreen rendering into the current composite rendering. See simple alpha compositing for details.

Name: opacity
Value: <alpha-value>
Initial: 1
Applies to: all elements
Inherited: no
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: The specified value, clamped to the range [0,1].
Animation type: discrete
<alpha-value>
The opacity to be applied to the element. It is interpreted identically to its definition in rgba(), except that the resulting opacity is applied to the entire element, rather than a particular color.

The opacity property applies the specified opacity to the element as a whole, including its contents, rather than applying it to each descendant individually. This means that, for example, an opaque child occluding part of the element’s background will continue to do so even when opacity is less than 1, but the element and child as a whole will show the underlying page through themselves.

If opacity has a value less than 1, the element forms a stacking context for its children. This means that any content outside of it cannot be layered in z-order between pieces of content inside of it, and vice versa. If the element is in a context where the z-index property applies, the auto value is treated as 0 for the element. See section 9.9 and Appendix E of [CSS21] for more information on stacking contexts. The rules in this paragraph do not apply to SVG elements, since SVG has its own rendering model ([SVG11], Chapter 3).

14.1. Simple alpha compositing

When drawing, implementations must handle alpha according to the rules in Section 14.2 Simple alpha compositing of [SVG11]. (If the color-interpolation or color-rendering properties mentioned in that section are not implemented or do not apply, implementations must act as though they have their initial values.)

15. Preserving Colors in Different-Capability Devices: the color-adjust property

On most monitors, the color choices that authors make have no significant difference in terms of how the device performs; displaying a document with a white background or a black background is approximately equally easy.

However, some devices have limitations and other qualities that make this assumption untrue. For example, printers tend to print on white paper; a document with a white background thus has to spend no ink on drawing that background, while a document with a black background will have to expend a large amount of ink filling in the background color. This tends to look fairly bad, and sometimes has deleterious physical effects on the paper, not to mention the vastly increased printing cost from expending the extra ink. Even fairly small differences, such as coloring text black versus dark gray, can be quite different when printing, as it switches from using a single black ink to a mixture of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink, resulting in higher ink usage and lower resolution.

As a result, in some circumstances user agents will alter the styles an author specifies in some particular context, adjusting them to be more appropriate for the output device and to accommodate what they assume the user would prefer. However, in some cases the document may be using colors in important, well-thought-out ways that the user would appreciate, and so the document would like some way to hint to the user agent that it might want to respect the page’s color choices. The color-adjust property controls this.

Name: color-adjust
Value: economy | exact
Initial: economy
Applies to: all elements
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: as specified
Animation type: discrete

The color-adjust property provides a hint to the user-agent about how it should treat color and style choices that might be expensive or generally unwise on a given device, such as using light text on a dark background in a printed document. If user agents allow users to control this aspect of the document’s display, the user preference must be respected more strongly than the hint provided by color-adjust. It has the following values:

economy
The user agent should make adjustments to the page’s styling as it deems necessary and prudent for the output device.

For example, if the document is being printed, a user agent might ignore any backgrounds and adjust text color to be sufficiently dark, to minimize ink usage.

exact
This value indicates that the page is using color and styling on the specified element in a way which is important and significant, and which should not be tweaked or changed except at the user’s request.

For example, a mapping website offering printed directions might "zebra-stripe" the steps in the directions, alternating between white and light gray backgrounds. Losing this zebra-striping and having a pure-white background would make the directions harder to read with a quick glance when distracted in a car.

16. Default Style Rules

The following stylesheet is informative, not normative. This style sheet could be used by an implementation as part of its default styling of HTML4, XHTML1, XHTML1.1, XHTML Basic, and other XHTML Family documents.

html {
  color: black;
}

/* traditional desktop user agent colors for hyperlinks */
:link    { color: blue; }
:visited { color: purple; }

The default background of the root element must be transparent. The default color of the canvas (the surface on which the document is painted) is UA-dependent, but is recommended to be white, especially if the above color rules are used.

17. Sample code for color conversions

// sRGB-related functions

function lin_sRGB(RGB) {
  // convert an array of sRGB values in the range 0.0 - 1.0 
  // to linear light (un-companded) form.
  // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB
  return RGB.map(function (val) {
    if (val < 0.04045) {
      return val / 12.92;
    }
		
    return Math.pow((val + 0.055) / 1.055, 2.4);
  });
}

function gam_sRGB(RGB) {
  // convert an array of linear-light sRGB values in the range 0.0-1.0
  // to gamma corrected form
  // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB
  return RGB.map(function (val) {
    if (val > 0.0031308) {
      return 1.055 * Math.pow(val, 1/2.4) - 0.055;
    }
		
    return 12.92 * val;
  });
}
 
function lin_sRGB_to_XYZ(rgb) {
  // convert an array of linear-light sRGB values to CIE XYZ
  // using sRGB’s own white, D65 (no chromatic adaptation)
  // http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?Eqn_RGB_XYZ_Matrix.html
  var M = math.matrix([
    [0.4124564,  0.3575761,  0.1804375],
    [0.2126729,  0.7151522,  0.0721750],
    [0.0193339,  0.1191920,  0.9503041]
  ]);
	
  return math.multiply(M, rgb).valueOf();
}

function XYZ_to_lin_sRGB(XYZ) {
  // convert XYZ to linear-light sRGB
  var M = math.matrix([
    [ 3.2404542, -1.5371385, -0.4985314],
    [-0.9692660,  1.8760108,  0.0415560],
    [ 0.0556434, -0.2040259,  1.0572252]
  ]);
	
  return math.multiply(M, XYZ).valueOf();
}

// DCI P3-related functions


function lin_P3(RGB) {
  // convert an array of DCI P3 RGB values in the range 0.0 - 1.0 
  // to linear light (un-companded) form.

  return RGB.map(function (val) {
    return Math.pow(val, 2.6);
  });
}

function gam_P3(RGB) {
  // convert an array of linear-light P3 RGB  in the range 0.0-1.0
  // to gamma corrected form
	
  return RGB.map(function (val) {
      return Math.pow(val, 1/2.6);
  });
}
 
function lin_P3_to_XYZ(rgb) {
  // convert an array of linear-light P3 values to CIE XYZ
  // using  D65 (no chromatic adaptation)
  // http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?Eqn_RGB_XYZ_Matrix.html
  var M = math.matrix([
    [0.4865709486482162, 0.26566769316909306, 0.1982172852343625],
    [0.2289745640697488, 0.6917385218365064,  0.079286914093745], 
    [0.0000000000000000, 0.04511338185890264, 1.043944368900976]
  ]);
  // 0 was computed as -3.972075516933488e-17
	
  return math.multiply(M, rgb).valueOf();
}

function XYZ_to_lin_P3(XYZ) {
  // convert XYZ to linear-light P3
  var M = math.matrix([
    [ 2.493496911941425,   -0.9313836179191239, -0.40271078445071684],
    [-0.8294889695615747,   1.7626640603183463,  0.023624685841943577],
    [ 0.03584583024378447, -0.07617238926804182, 0.9568845240076872]
  ]);
	
  return math.multiply(M, XYZ).valueOf();
}

//Rec.2020-related functions

function lin_2020(RGB) {
  // convert an array of Rec.2020 RGB values in the range 0.0 - 1.0 
  // to linear light (un-companded) form.
  const α = 1.09929682680944 ;
  const β = 0.018053968510807;
	
  return RGB.map(function (val) {
    if (val < β * 4.5 ) {
      return val / 4.5;
    }
		
    return Math.pow((val + α -1 ) / α, 2.4);
  });
}
//check with standard this really is 2.4 and 1/2.4, not 0.45 was wikipedia claims

function gam_2020(RGB) {
  // convert an array of linear-light Rec.2020 RGB  in the range 0.0-1.0
  // to gamma corrected form
  const α = 1.09929682680944 ;
  const β = 0.018053968510807;
	
  return RGB.map(function (val) {
    if (val > β ) {
      return α * Math.pow(val, 1/2.4) - (α - 1);
    }
		
    return 4.5 * val;
  });
}
 
function lin_2020_to_XYZ(rgb) {
  // convert an array of linear-light rec.2020 values to CIE XYZ
  // using  D65 (no chromatic adaptation)
  // http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?Eqn_RGB_XYZ_Matrix.html
  var M = math.matrix([
    [0.6369580483012914, 0.14461690358620832,  0.1688809751641721],
    [0.2627002120112671, 0.6779980715188708,   0.05930171646986196],
    [0.000000000000000,  0.028072693049087428, 1.060985057710791]
  ]);
  // 0 is actually calculated as  4.994106574466076e-17
	
  return math.multiply(M, rgb).valueOf();
}

function XYZ_to_lin_2020(XYZ) {
  // convert XYZ to linear-light rec.2020
  var M = math.matrix([
    [1.7166511879712674,   -0.35567078377639233, -0.25336628137365974],
    [-0.6666843518324892,   1.6164812366349395,   0.01576854581391113],
    [0.017639857445310783, -0.042770613257808524, 0.9421031212354738]
  ]);
	
  return math.multiply(M, XYZ).valueOf();
}

// Chromatic adaptation

function D65_to_D50(XYZ) {
  // Bradford chromatic adaptation from D65 to D50
  // The matrix below is the result of three operations:
  // - convert from XYZ to retinal cone domain
  // - scale components from one reference white to another
  // - convert back to XYZ
  // http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?Eqn_ChromAdapt.html
  var M = math.matrix([
    [ 1.0478112,  0.0228866, -0.0501270],
    [ 0.0295424,  0.9904844, -0.0170491],
    [-0.0092345,  0.0150436,  0.7521316]
   ]);
	
  return math.multiply(M, XYZ).valueOf();
}

function D50_to_D65(XYZ) {
  // Bradford chromatic adaptation from D50 to D65
  var M = math.matrix([
    [ 0.9555766, -0.0230393,  0.0631636],
    [-0.0282895,  1.0099416,  0.0210077],
    [ 0.0122982, -0.0204830,  1.3299098]
   ]);
	 
  return math.multiply(M, XYZ).valueOf();
}

// Lab and LCH

function XYZ_to_Lab(XYZ) {
  // Assuming XYZ is relative to D50, convert to CIE Lab
  // from CIE standard, which now defines these as a rational fraction
  var ε = 216/24389;  // 6^3/29^3
  var κ = 24389/27;   // 29^3/3^3
  var white = [0.9642, 1.0000, 0.8249]; // D50 reference white
	
  // compute xyz, which is XYZ scaled relative to reference white
  var xyz = XYZ.map((value, i) => value / white[i]);
	
  // now compute f
  var f = xyz.map(value => value > ε ? Math.cbrt(value) : (κ * value + 16)/116);
	
  return [
    (116 * f[1]) - 16, // L
    500 * (f[0] - f[1]), // a
    200 * (f[1] - f[2]) // b
  ];
}

function Lab_to_XYZ(Lab) {
  // Convert Lab to D50-adapted XYZ
  var κ = 24389/27;   // 29^3/3^3
  var ε = 216/24389;  // 6^3/29^3
  var white = [0.9642, 1.0000, 0.8249]; // D50 reference white
  var f = [];
	
  // compute f, starting with the luminance-related term
  f[1] = (Lab[0] + 16)/116;
  f[0] = Lab[1]/500 + f[1];
  f[2] = f[1] - Lab[2]/200;
	
  // compute xyz
  var xyz = [
    Math.pow(f[0],3) > ε ?   Math.pow(f[0],3)            : (116*f[0]-16)/κ,
    Lab[0] > κ * ε ?         Math.pow((Lab[0]+16)/116,3) : Lab[0]/κ,
    Math.pow(f[2],3)  > ε ?  Math.pow(f[2],3)            : (116*f[2]-16)/κ
  ];
	
  // Compute XYZ by scaling xyz by reference white  
  return xyz.map((value, i) => value * white[i]);
}

function Lab_to_LCH(Lab) {
  // Convert to polar form
  return [
    Lab[0], // L is still L
    Math.sqrt(Math.pow(Lab[1], 2) + Math.pow(Lab[2], 2)), // Chroma 
    Math.atan2(Lab[2], Lab[1]) * 180 / Math.PI // Hue, in degrees
  ];
}

function LCH_to_Lab(LCH) {
  // Convert from polar form
  return [
    LCH[0], // L is still L
    LCH[1] * Math.cos(LCH[2] * Math.PI / 180), // a
    LCH[1] * Math.sin(LCH[2] * Math.PI / 180) // b
  ];
}

Appendix A: Deprecated CSS System Colors

Earlier versions of CSS defined several additional named color keywords, the <deprecated-system-color>s, which were meant to take their value from operating system themes. These color names have been deprecated, however, as they are insufficient for their original purpose (making website elements look like their native OS counterparts), and represent a security risk, as it makes it easier for a webpage to "spoof" a native OS dialog.

User agents must support these keywords, but should map them to "default" values, not based on the user’s OS settings (for example, mapping all the "background" colors to white and "foreground" colors to black). Authors must not use these keywords.

ActiveBorder
Active window border.
ActiveCaption
Active window caption.
AppWorkspace
Background color of multiple document interface.
Background
Desktop background.
ButtonFace
The face background color for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to one layer of surrounding border.
ButtonHighlight
The color of the border facing the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to one layer of surrounding border.
ButtonShadow
The color of the border away from the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to one layer of surrounding border.
ButtonText
Text on push buttons.
CaptionText
Text in caption, size box, and scrollbar arrow box.
GrayText
Grayed (disabled) text. This color is set to #000 if the current display driver does not support a solid gray color.
Highlight
Item(s) selected in a control.
HighlightText
Text of item(s) selected in a control.
InactiveBorder
Inactive window border.
InactiveCaption
Inactive window caption.
InactiveCaptionText
Color of text in an inactive caption.
InfoBackground
Background color for tooltip controls.
InfoText
Text color for tooltip controls.
Menu
Menu background.
MenuText
Text in menus.
Scrollbar
Scroll bar gray area.
ThreeDDarkShadow
The color of the darker (generally outer) of the two borders away from the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
ThreeDFace
The face background color for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
ThreeDHighlight
The color of the lighter (generally outer) of the two borders facing the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
ThreeDLightShadow
The color of the darker (generally inner) of the two borders facing the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
ThreeDShadow
The color of the lighter (generally inner) of the two borders away from the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
Window
Window background.
WindowFrame
Window frame.
WindowText
Text in windows.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Brad Pettit both for writing up color-profiles, and for implementing it. Thanks to Steven Pemberton for his write up on HSL colors. Thanks especially to the feedback from Marc Attinasi, Bert Bos, Joe Clark, fantasai, Patrick Garies, Tony Graham, Ian Hickson, Susan Lesch, Alex LeDonne, Cameron McCormack, Krzysztof Maczyński, Chris Moschini, Chris Murphy, Christoph Päper, David Perrell, Jacob Refstrup, Dave Singer, Jonathan Stanley, Andrew Thompson, Russ Weakley, Etan Wexler, David Woolley, Boris Zbarsky, Steve Zilles, the XSL FO subgroup of the XSL working group, and all the rest of the www-style community.

And thanks to Chris Lilley for being the resident CSS Color expert.

Changes

Changes from Colors 3

  1. rgb() and rgba() functions now accept <number> rather than <integer>.
  2. hsl() and hsla() functions now accept <angle> as well as <number> for hues.
  3. All uses of <alpha-value> now accept <percentage> as well as <number>.
  4. 4 and 8-digit hex colors have been added, to specify transparency.

Several brand new features have been added:

  1. gray() function, for specifying grays compactly. (And maybe allowing specification via luminance.)
  2. hwb() function, for specifying colors in the HWB notation.
  3. color-mod() function, for manipulating colors.
  4. lab() and lch functions, for device-independent color
  5. color() function and profile at-rule, for profiled device-dependent color.
  6. device-cmyk() function, for specifying uncalibrated colors in an output-device-specific CMYK colorspace.
  7. Addition of named color rebeccapurple.

Conformance

Document conventions

Conformance requirements are expressed with a combination of descriptive assertions and RFC 2119 terminology. The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in the normative parts of this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. However, for readability, these words do not appear in all uppercase letters in this specification.

All of the text of this specification is normative except sections explicitly marked as non-normative, examples, and notes. [RFC2119]

Examples in this specification are introduced with the words “for example” or are set apart from the normative text with class="example", like this:

This is an example of an informative example.

Informative notes begin with the word “Note” and are set apart from the normative text with class="note", like this:

Note, this is an informative note.

Advisements are normative sections styled to evoke special attention and are set apart from other normative text with <strong class="advisement">, like this: UAs MUST provide an accessible alternative.

Conformance classes

Conformance to this specification is defined for three conformance classes:

style sheet
A CSS style sheet.
renderer
A UA that interprets the semantics of a style sheet and renders documents that use them.
authoring tool
A UA that writes a style sheet.

A style sheet is conformant to this specification if all of its statements that use syntax defined in this module are valid according to the generic CSS grammar and the individual grammars of each feature defined in this module.

A renderer is conformant to this specification if, in addition to interpreting the style sheet as defined by the appropriate specifications, it supports all the features defined by this specification by parsing them correctly and rendering the document accordingly. However, the inability of a UA to correctly render a document due to limitations of the device does not make the UA non-conformant. (For example, a UA is not required to render color on a monochrome monitor.)

An authoring tool is conformant to this specification if it writes style sheets that are syntactically correct according to the generic CSS grammar and the individual grammars of each feature in this module, and meet all other conformance requirements of style sheets as described in this module.

Requirements for Responsible Implementation of CSS

The following sections define several conformance requirements for implementing CSS responsibly, in a way that promotes interoperability in the present and future.

Partial Implementations

So that authors can exploit the forward-compatible parsing rules to assign fallback values, CSS renderers must treat as invalid (and ignore as appropriate) any at-rules, properties, property values, keywords, and other syntactic constructs for which they have no usable level of support. In particular, user agents must not selectively ignore unsupported property values and honor supported values in a single multi-value property declaration: if any value is considered invalid (as unsupported values must be), CSS requires that the entire declaration be ignored.

Implementations of Unstable and Proprietary Features

To avoid clashes with future stable CSS features, the CSSWG recommends following best practices for the implementation of unstable features and proprietary extensions to CSS.

Implementations of CR-level Features

Once a specification reaches the Candidate Recommendation stage, implementers should release an unprefixed implementation of any CR-level feature they can demonstrate to be correctly implemented according to spec, and should avoid exposing a prefixed variant of that feature.

To establish and maintain the interoperability of CSS across implementations, the CSS Working Group requests that non-experimental CSS renderers submit an implementation report (and, if necessary, the testcases used for that implementation report) to the W3C before releasing an unprefixed implementation of any CSS features. Testcases submitted to W3C are subject to review and correction by the CSS Working Group.

Further information on submitting testcases and implementation reports can be found from on the CSS Working Group’s website at http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/. Questions should be directed to the public-css-testsuite@w3.org mailing list.

Index

Terms defined by this specification

Terms defined by reference

References

Normative References

[CSS-POSITION-3]
Rossen Atanassov; Arron Eicholz. CSS Positioned Layout Module Level 3. 17 May 2016. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-position-3/
[CSS-SYNTAX-3]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Simon Sapin. CSS Syntax Module Level 3. 20 February 2014. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-syntax-3/
[CSS-VALUES]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Elika Etemad. CSS Values and Units Module Level 3. 11 June 2015. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-values/
[CSS21]
Bert Bos; et al. Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) Specification. 7 June 2011. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2
[DCI-P3]
RP 431-2, D-Cinema Quality – Reference Projector and Environment for the Display of DCDM in Review Rooms and Theaters. 2011.
[FILTERS-1]
Filter Effects Level 1 URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/filter-effects-1/
[ICC]
ICC.1:2010 (Profile version 4.3.0.0). December 2010. URL: http://www.color.org/specification/ICC1v43_2010-12.pdf
[MEDIAQUERIES-4]
Florian Rivoal; Tab Atkins Jr.. Media Queries Level 4. 23 June 2016. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/mediaqueries-4/
[Rec.2020]
Recommendation ITU-R BT.2020-2: Parameter values for ultra-high definition television systems for production and international programme exchange . October 2015. URL: http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BT.2020/en
[RFC2119]
S. Bradner. Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. March 1997. Best Current Practice. URL: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119
[SELECTORS-4]
Selectors Level 4 URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors4/
[SRGB]
Multimedia systems and equipment - Colour measurement and management - Part 2-1: Colour management - Default RGB colour space - sRGB. IEC 61966-2-1 (1999-10). ISBN: 2-8318-4989-6 - ICS codes: 33.160.60, 37.080 - TC 100 - 51 pp. URL: https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/6169
[SVG11]
Erik Dahlström; et al. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition). 16 August 2011. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/
[SVG2]
Nikos Andronikos; et al. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2. 15 September 2015. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG2/

Informative References

[COLORIMETRY]
Colorimetry, Second Edition. 15 February 1986.
[CSS3-TEXT-DECOR]
Elika Etemad; Koji Ishii. CSS Text Decoration Module Level 3. 1 August 2013. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-decor-3/
[WCAG20]
Ben Caldwell; et al. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. 11 December 2008. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

Property Index

Name Value Initial Applies to Inh. %ages Media Anim­ation type Com­puted value
color <color> UA-defined, see prose all elements yes N/A visual discrete an RGBA color
opacity <alpha-value> 1 all elements no N/A visual discrete The specified value, clamped to the range [0,1].
color-adjust economy | exact economy all elements yes N/A visual discrete as specified

Issues Index

Really? Isn’t HD video in Rec.709? Shouldn’t video be consistent with images? Or do implementations really do this differently?
The transfer function is undefined outside the range 0% to 100%.
Need to define handling for out of range numbers. Clip L, wrap H? Have also seen L up to 400, specifically for high dynamic range situations.
Need to decide what, if anything, to do for high dynamic range on luminance.
As decided at San Francisco, this syntax is an alias to Lab with a=b=0.
color() fallback should be like font list fallback, as decided at San Francisco. Recursive?
Decided at San Francisco to add a larger set of common predefined spaceslike AdobeRGB, ProPhoto RGB, and so on. Also coated and uncoated swop, etc, etc. 
Further define a fallback color, as decided at San Francisco. Can be an sRGB fallback or indeed another color() function.
Need to add choice of quoted string or number+, to allow for named color profiles.
The defining spec for dci-p3 is not freely available. It costs USD 240. There is a Wikipedia article, which is non-authoritative and of unknown accuracy (particularly for the transfer function and viewing conditions).
DCI transfer function for P3 is gamma 1/2.6 while Apple P3 displays use gamma 1/2.2.
Canvas proposes adding a 16bit half-float linear rec2020 space
Same-origin and CORS for src.
local() to use locally installed profiles. Profile stack like font-face rather than a single url. Avoid flash of uncalibrated color.
RESOLVED: Do black point compensation when converting from profile to another. This will depend on the rendering intent and is mentioned there already. Does that suffice? What about black point compensation for the flare correction built into sRGB?
Resolved at San Francisco to add a working-color-space at-rule, which affects the entire document. Compositing, interpolation, blending use this. Initial value is sRGB. linear-sRGB, p3, rec2020, and lab were also discussed as values. Chris to read the canvas spec to see what it does there, particularly for the optimal value.
RESOLVED: If you accurately describe the output device’s color profile in an @color-profile rule then a sane implementation will not alter your colors so this is sufficient as a replacement for device-cmyk in general and provides a good RGB fallback automatically.
This section now needs to clearly distinguish between calibrated (icc-based) color on the one hand, and uncalibrated device-cmyk on the other. This particularly affects conversion to and from RGB.
Actually add the CNS thing.
More possibilities:
This blends the two colors in a way that pays attention to alpha, similar to how compositing does. Is there a better formula? The current one was determined empirically to give good results, but isn’t motivated by any theory.
Should we swap the defaults, so blend() does the alpha blending, and another name (or maybe another parameter) ignores alpha like blend() currently does? Check with definitions in CSS compositing and blending module.
The code below is only for sRGB, and duplicates the more general code in the conversions appendix.