Hue (H)
Hue is the color family – its position on the color wheel,
usually expressed in degrees:
- Hue 0 → Red
- Hue 30 → Orange
- Hue 60 → Yellow
- Hue 120 → Green
- Hue 180 → Cyan / Teal
- Hue 240 → Blue
- Hue 300 → Magenta / Pink
- Hue 360 wraps back to Red
Lightness (L)
Lightness describes how light or dark a color is.
Imagine a slider from black to white:
- L0 → pure black
- L100 → pure white
- Values in between are progressively lighter steps of the same hue
In the built-in palette, each hue family has a little ladder of Lightness
values so you can move from deep ink to soft highlight without changing
hue family.
Saturation (S)
Saturation is the intensity of the color:
- Low S → muted, dusty, greyed-out
- Medium S → natural, everyday colors
- High S → loud, neon, digital-feeling colors
Putting it together
A label like Hue 210 • L70 means:
- Hue 210 → a blue-family hue
- L70 → fairly light
Same hue, different Lightness values → a controlled, predictable ladder
you can climb when you’re designing.
Why this matters in Palette Grabber
Palette Grabber samples pixels, finds their hue and lightness, then
organizes them into palettes so you see structure instead of just random colors.
The built-in swatches are a stable reference, showing how hue and lightness
behave in a clean, regular grid.