This page shows colors arranged in six different color spaces.

CIELAB

CIE L*a*b* is a color space specified by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) in 1976

CIELUV

CIE L*u*v* is a color space specified by the CIE in 1976.

CIECAM02

CIECAM02 is a color space specified by the CIE in 2002.

IPT

IPT is a color space proposed by Ebner & Fairchild in 1998.

Y'CbCr

The color space used in analog and digital video (the digital version is called Y'CbCr). The prime symbol after the Y means its derived from non-linear (gamma-corrected) signal values. It's simply a rotation of the RGB cube.

HSV

This is a projection of the RGB cube into a cylindrical coordinate system.

All spaces are expressed in cylindrical coordinates. The first is lightness/luma/value, the second is chroma/saturation and the third is the hue angle. Shown in the diagram are colors of two hues. The right side shows the selected (in the range from 0 to 180°) hue. The left side shows the opposite hue (+ 180°).

All appearance based models (CIELAB, CIELUV, CIECAM02, and IPT) use sRGB gamut and D65 as adopted white. For CIECAM02 the assumed viewing conditions are a dim surround, an adapting luminance of 20 nits, and complete adaptation.

The background color can be entered as a single number, which will be interpreted as the lightness/luma/value of the selected model. Or one enters a RGB hex code. If left blank, the background lightness will be the center of the lightness axis.

One can pick and collect colors in a list by clicking on the color patches.