HSV Color Palette

Description

Details

Originally this palette was created back in 2012 to remedy the meager 8-column palette that came with LibreOffice at that time. In 2015, I updated it to fit the newer 12-column palette layout. Each major color band takes one column. The values are stepped through by adjusting the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) in regular increments. Black, White and Grays take the top two rows, for easy access.

Since Color Palettes are an attempt to represent three dimensions (RGB, HSV, or CMY) in two dimensions, they are always challenging to create. That is why this palette uses a cascaded arrangement. I used HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) to determine the colors. Value is also sometimes referred to as Brightness. Hue is calculated from 0-360 degrees of color, from Red to Orange to Yellow, etc…and back to Red. Saturation and Value use 0-100% scales.

Color Increments

For the Color increments, going left to right, each block in a given row represents a Hue change of 30. So in 12 steps it goes through the following:

• Red (0)
• Orange (30)
• Yellow (60)
• Chartreuse Green (90)
• Green (120)
• Spring Green (150)
• Cyan (180)
• Azure (210)
• Blue (240)
• Violet (270)
• Magenta (300)
• Rose (330)

This means that there are fine increments of color between these Hue values that are not included. But every palette must make some compromises, since there are millions of possible colors from which to choose! I have tried to aim at a palette which represents the major hues and shades while still retaining a reasonable size, and also not introducing lots of colors, whose differences cannot be distinguished by the human eye.

Palette Arrangement

1. This Palette starts with the grays. I decided to use 22 shades of gray, plus black and white, to cover two complete rows of the 12-block width of the palette. I also decided to have the grays go lighter to the right on the first row, then double-back and go lighter to the left on the second row. This puts black and white right by each other for easier access.
2. The first level of colors (10 rows) uses a Value setting of 100 (max) throughout. Then as the rows go down, the Saturation decreases by 10 (100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10). I didn’t go lower than 10 as it becomes difficult to distinguish the color change at such low Saturation (it is almost white).
3. The second level of colors (10 rows) uses a Value setting of 80 throughout. As the rows go down, the Saturation decreases by 10 (100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10). Again, I didn’t go lower than 10 as the colors become so close to gray as to be almost indistinguishable.
4. The third level of colors (7 rows) uses a Value setting of 60 throughout. Then as the rows go down, the Saturation decreases by 15 (100, 85, 70, 55, 40, 25, 10). There are bigger increments in the decrease of Saturation solely because it becomes more difficult to discern finer differences with the human eye. The less the Value (or Brightness), the more difficult it is to discern changes in the Saturation level.
5. The fourth level of colors (5 rows) uses a Value setting of 40 throughout. Then as the rows go down, the Saturation decreases by 15 (100, 85, 70, 55, 40).
6. The fifth, and last, level of colors (3 rows) uses a Value setting of 20 throughout. Then as the rows go down, the Saturation decreases by 30 (100, 70, 40).

Color Names

I tried to look up the Color Names for the various shades in the palette, but not all of them have names. So I roughly followed a few naming schemes, and added adjectives to fill in where necessary. The basic Color Names are given in the Color Increments section above. The descriptive adjectives to distinguish each shade were applied as follows:

Section 1 (10 rows)

Luminous Vivid (ColorName)
Vivid (ColorName)
Brilliant (ColorName)
Light Brilliant (ColorName)
Light (ColorName)
Very Light (ColorName)
Pale (ColorName)
Very Pale (ColorName)
Whitish (ColorName)
(ColorName)ish White

Section 2 (10 rows)

Strong (ColorName)
Semi Strong (ColorName)
Semi Brilliant (ColorName)
Moderate (ColorName)
Light Moderate (ColorName)
Very Light Moderate (ColorName)
Semi Light Grayish (ColorName)
Light Grayish (ColorName)
Pale Light Grayish (ColorName)
Light (ColorName)ish Gray

Section 3 (7 rows)

Medium (ColorName)
Semi Medium (ColorName)
Pale Medium (ColorName)
Light Pale Medium (ColorName)
Grayish Pale Medium (ColorName)
Pale Medium (ColorName)ish Gray
Light Medium (ColorName)ish Gray

Section 4 (5 rows)

Dark (ColorName)
Semi Dark (ColorName)
Moderate Dark (ColorName)
Dark Grayish (ColorName)
Dark (ColorName)ish Gray

Section 5 (3 rows)

Deep (ColorName)
Semi Deep (ColorName)
Grayish Deep (ColorName)

Homepage: https://www.practicatechnical.com/software/libreoffice-color-palette