What is the difference between HSL and HSV?

Both use hue and saturation, but the third channel differs. In HSL, lightness 0 is black and lightness 100 is white — fully saturated colours sit at lightness 50. In HSV, value 0 is black and value 100 is the full colour — to get white you reduce saturation, not value. Design software colour pickers typically use HSV; CSS uses HSL.

Does the tool support alpha / transparency?

Not currently. This converter handles opaque colours only. For RGBA or HSLA, append the alpha channel manually to the CSS output: rgb(255, 102, 0) → rgba(255, 102, 0, 0.5).

What is the maximum file size?

3 MB. This is set by the Vercel free tier request body limit. For larger images, use the API with a self-hosted instance — there is no size cap when self-hosted.

Does conversion affect image quality?

Lossless formats (PNG, TIFF) preserve every pixel exactly. Lossy formats (JPEG, WebP, AVIF) reduce file size by discarding perceptually insignificant detail. The quality slider controls this trade-off: 80 is a good default for web images, 90+ for print-quality exports, and 60–70 for thumbnails where small file size matters more than sharpness.

Tool comparison

Color Converter vs Image Converter

Color Converter and Image Converter are both conversion tools. They serve related purposes but are optimised for different tasks — understanding the distinction helps you choose the right one for your workflow.

Bottom line

Color Converter translates a single colour value between HEX, RGB, HSL, and other notations — no image file involved. Image Converter processes entire image files between formats. They belong to separate problem domains: design/CSS workflow vs file transformation.

What each tool does

Color Converter

Colors in digital design and web development are represented in multiple formats, each suited to a different context. HEX (#ff6600) is the format used in CSS, HTML, and design tools like Figma and Photoshop. RGB (red, green, blue) is the native format of screens — each channel has a value from 0 to 255. HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) is the most human-readable format: you adjust hue to pick a colour family, saturation to move from grey to vivid, and lightness to go from black to white. HSV/HSB (hue, saturation, value/brightness) is used in colour pickers in design software and is similar to HSL but with different semantics for the third channel. Converting between formats is necessary when moving colours from a design tool (HEX or HSL) to CSS code (rgb()), from a colour picker (HSV) to a data attribute (HEX), or when programmatically generating palettes by rotating the hue in HSL.

Open Color Converter →

Image Converter

Image conversion is the process of re-encoding a digital image from one file format to another, changing the container, compression algorithm, and colour depth according to the target format's specification. Different image formats make different trade-offs: PNG uses lossless compression and supports full alpha transparency, making it ideal for screenshots, icons, and graphics with sharp edges. JPEG uses lossy compression optimised for photographs, achieving small file sizes at the cost of some detail. WebP is a modern format developed by Google that supports both lossless and lossy compression as well as alpha transparency — it is typically 25–35% smaller than JPEG or PNG at equivalent quality, and all modern browsers support it. AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) is the newest of the major formats, achieving roughly 50% smaller files than JPEG at equivalent visual quality at the cost of longer encoding times. TIFF is a lossless, uncompressed format used in print and photography workflows. GIF supports up to 256 colours and is primarily used for animations. This tool converts between PNG, JPEG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, and GIF, and can rasterise SVG files to any of those formats. Conversion runs on the server using the Sharp library (libvips) — your image is sent over HTTPS and is not stored.

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Side-by-side comparison

Feature	Color Converter	Image Converter
Category	conversion	conversion
Primary purpose	Convert colors between HEX, RGB, HSL, and HSV — instantly and in any direction.	Convert images between PNG, JPEG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, GIF, and SVG formats
Inputs	color	image, from, to, quality
Outputs	hex, rgb, hsl, hsv, valid, error	image, format, width, height, size_bytes

When to use each

Use Color Converter when…

How to convert HEX to RGB for CSS

Convert a HEX colour code from a design file to an rgb() value for use in CSS.

How to convert RGB to HEX

Convert an RGB colour value to a HEX code for use in HTML, CSS, or a design tool.

Use Image Converter when…

How to convert PNG to WebP online

Reduce PNG file size by converting to WebP format for faster web page loading.

How to convert JPEG to AVIF online

Shrink photo file sizes dramatically by converting JPEG images to the AVIF format.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between HSL and HSV?: Both use hue and saturation, but the third channel differs. In HSL, lightness 0 is black and lightness 100 is white — fully saturated colours sit at lightness 50. In HSV, value 0 is black and value 100 is the full colour — to get white you reduce saturation, not value. Design software colour pickers typically use HSV; CSS uses HSL.
Does the tool support alpha / transparency?: Not currently. This converter handles opaque colours only. For RGBA or HSLA, append the alpha channel manually to the CSS output: rgb(255, 102, 0) → rgba(255, 102, 0, 0.5).
What is the maximum file size?: 3 MB. This is set by the Vercel free tier request body limit. For larger images, use the API with a self-hosted instance — there is no size cap when self-hosted.
Does conversion affect image quality?: Lossless formats (PNG, TIFF) preserve every pixel exactly. Lossy formats (JPEG, WebP, AVIF) reduce file size by discarding perceptually insignificant detail. The quality slider controls this trade-off: 80 is a good default for web images, 90+ for print-quality exports, and 60–70 for thumbnails where small file size matters more than sharpness.