better-color-tools

better-color-tools

Color parser and better color manipulation through the power of science! 🧪 Uses Oklab/Oklch for better color operations.

The JS version of this libray is fast (~200k ops/s), lightweight (5 kB gzip), and dependency-free. The Sass version… is Sass (which has no runtime).

👉 Playground: https://better-color-tools.pages.dev/

Usage

npm install better-color-tools

JavaScript

Works in the browser (ESM) and Node (14+).

Importing

import better from 'better-color-tools';

Parse

better.from('#b3f6e6'); // hex string
better.from(0xb3f6e6); // hex integer (note: only mode that doesn’t support transparency)
better.from('rebeccapurple'); // CSS keyword
better.from('rgb(136, 48, 62)'); // CSS RGB
better.from('hsl(210, 85%, 37%)'); // CSS HSL
better.from('oklab(48.56949% -0.03971 -0.14459)'); // CSS Oklab
better.from('oklch(83.11253% 0.22612 147.35276)'); // CSS Oklch

This library understands any CSS-valid color, including CSS Color Module 4 (but if some aspect isn’t implemented yet, please request it!).

Convert

This library converts to most web-compatible formats¹, with an emphasis on usefulness over completeness:

• sRGB (hex): better.from('…').hex / better.from('…').hexVal
• sRGB (RGB): better.from('…').rgb / better.from('–').rgbVal
• Oklab: better.from('…').oklab / better.from('…').oklabVal
• Oklch: better.from('…').oklch / better.from('…').oklchVal
• XYZ: better.from('…').xyz / better.from('…').xyzVal

¹The following formats aren’t supported as outputs:

• HSL isn’t supported because you shouldn’t use it
• HWB isn’t supported because it’s another form of HSL
• HSV is a great colorspace, but on no standards track for the web currently
• CIE L*a*/CIE L*C*h aren’t supported because Oklab/Oklch are superior

For a comprehensive color conversion library, see culori.

Mix

better.mix('red', 'lime', 0.35); // Mix `red` and `lime` 35%, i.e. more red
better.mix('blue', 'magenta', 0.5, 'srgb-linear'); // Mix `blue` and `magenta` 50% using srgb-linear colorspace

This uses Oklab (best) by default, but also supports oklch, lms, sRGB, and linearRGB colorspaces for mixing.

Lighten / Darken

better.lighten('red', 0.5); // Lighten color by 50%
better.darken('red', 0.5); // Darken color by 50%

This takes hue and human perception into account for visually-accurate results. Also, fun fact: both functions accept negative values.

Lightness

Get the human-perceived lightness of any color (identical to the first value of .oklabVal)

better.lightness('#fc7030'); // 0.7063999

Manipulation

import better, { colorFn } from 'better-color-tools';

let [L, C, h] = better.from('#5a00a6').oklchVal;
h += 5; // rotate hue by 5°
C += 0.01; // increase Chroma by 1%
better.from(colorFn('oklch', [L, C, h])).hex; // #6f00ca

Manipulation is best done in a space like Oklch which is optimized for manual tweaking.

Sass

Works with any version of Dart Sass (the current version).

Importing

@use 'better-color-tools' as better;

Mix

.foo {
  color: better.mix('red', 'lime', 0.35);
}

Uses Oklab for best results (which yields much better results than Sass’ mix).

Lighten / Darken

.foo:hover {
  color: better.lighten('blue', 0.2);
  border-color: better.darken('blue', 0.15);
}

Lightens (or darkens) color via Oklab for human-perceived lightness value (which yields much better results than Sass’ lighten/darken:

P3

.foo {
  color: better.p3(#f00); // color(display-p3 1 0 0)
}

Convert any Sass-readable color to P3.

Fallback

.foo {
  @include better.fallback('color', better.p3(#f00), #f00);
  // color: #f00;
  // color: color(display-p3 1 0 0);
}

Mixin for adding CSS fallbacks. Can take infinite arguments. Specify desired format first, followed by fallbacks.

Oklab

$oklab: better.rgbToOklab(#f00); // (l: 0.6279554, a: 0.22486, b: 0.12585)
$rgb: better.oklabToRGB($oklab); // #f00

Converts any Sass-readable color to an Oklab map of (l: …, a: …, b: –). The Sass map can either be used to make a CSS string:

@use 'sass:map';

.foo {
  color: oklab(#{map.get($oklab, 'l')} #{map.get($oklab, 'a')} #{map.get($oklab, 'b')});
  color: better.oklabToRGB($oklab); // fallback
}

Or for color manipulation:

$oklab-lighter: map.set($oklab, 'l', 0.8);

Lightness

Get the human-perceived lightness of any color (identical to the first value of .oklabVal):

$lightness: better.lightness(#f00);

Project summary

This project is meant to provide the best possible method for common color operations such as mixing, lightening/darkening, and conversion. This library is not comprehensive, and doesn’t support any colorspaces that don’t serve a practical purpose (limiting colorspaces helps this library optimize for performance over completeness, not to mention ease-of-use). If you are well-versed in color science and need a comprehensive library, consider Culori or Color.js instead.

To learn more, see Project Goals

Changelog

0.8.1

Patch Changes

• 2dde7ca: Fixed implementation of Björn's gamut clipping to sRGB in Oklab