Every format, and the number that matters
Hex, RGB and HSL are all here with a copy button each, because which one you need depends entirely on what you are pasting into. HSL is the underrated one: it is the only format where "slightly lighter" or "less saturated" is an obvious single-number change.
The contrast figures are the part most pickers leave out. A colour can be perfect in a swatch and unusable as text, and knowing that before you commit to it saves a round of review comments later.
- Reading a colour out of a design and getting it into code
- Checking whether a brand colour works as text before using it
- Building a shade ramp from a single base colour
- Sampling a colour from anywhere on screen, where the browser allows it
Picking a colour from anywhere on screen
Where the browser supports it, the eyedropper samples any pixel on your display — including other applications. It is a permissioned feature and simply absent in some browsers, so the button only appears when it will actually work rather than failing silently.
The shade ramp gives you eight tints and shades of whatever you have picked. Click one to make it the current colour, which is a quick way to build a palette from a single starting point.
Sharing a colour
The colour is written into the address bar, so a picked colour is a link. Paste it into a ticket or a chat and the person opening it sees the same colour with the same values.
For a full screen of one colour rather than a swatch, the custom colour screen takes the same hex value.