Variations of gray or grey include achromatic grayscale shades, which lie exactly between white and black, and nearby colors with low colorfulness. A selection of a number of these various colors is shown below.
Chart of computer web color grays
Below is a chart showing the computer web color grays. An achromatic gray is a gray color in which the red, green, and blue codes are exactly equal. The web colors gray, gainsboro, light gray, dark gray, and dim gray are all achromatic colors. A chromatic gray is a gray color in which the red, green, and blue codes are not exactly equal, but are close to each other, which is what makes it a shade of gray.
HTML color name
Sample
Hex triplet
By name
By hex triplet
gainsboro
#DCDCDC
lightgray
#D3D3D3
silver
#C0C0C0
darkgray
#A9A9A9
gray
#808080
dimgray
#696969
lightslategray
#778899
slategray
#708090
darkslategray
#2F4F4F
White and black
The colors white and black are not usually thought of as shades of gray, but they can be thought of as shades of achromatic gray, as both contain equal amounts of red, blue and green. White is at the extreme upper end of the achromatic value scale and black is at the extreme lower end of the achromatic value scale, with all the colors normally considered tones of achromatic gray colors in between. Since achromatic colors have no hue, the hue code (h code) is left blank for achromatic colors (usually marked as a dash).
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness. White is the lightest possible color.
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflectlight in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light.
Black is the darkest possible color. While this platonic ideal black is never found with actual pigments or other coloring, sufficiently dark items are generally referred to as "black".
Achromatic grays
Achromatic grays are colors in which the RGB (red, green, and blue) values are exactly equal. Since achromatic grays have no hue, the hue code (the h in the hsv values of the color) is indicated with a dash. Achromatic grays are the axis of the color sphere, with white at the north pole and black at the south pole of the color sphere. The various tones of achromatic gray are along the axis of the color sphere from white at the top of the axis to black at the bottom of the axis.
The first recorded use of gray as a color name in the English language was in 700.[2]
This tone of gray (HTML gray) is universally used as the standard for gray because it is that tone of gray which is halfway between white and black.[citation needed]
Prior to standardization as a web color, Gainsboro was included as one of the X11 color names.[3] It was, however, absent from the original 1987 version of the list,[4] but present in Paul Raveling's version[5] which added, amongst other things, "[l]ight and off-white colors, copied from several Sinclair Paints color samples".[6]
At right is displayed the color medium gray, or gray in the X11 color names, which is lighter than the HTML/CSS gray shown below. The coordinates in the X11 were set at 190 to avoid gray being displayed as white on 2-bit grayscale displays.[7]
Spanish gray is the color that is called gris (gray in Spanish) in the Guía de coloraciones (Guide to colorations) by Rosa Gallego and
Juan Carlos Sanz, a color dictionary published in 2005 that is widely popular in the Hispanophone realm.
A middle gray is a tone that is in some sense about halfway between black and white. See the main article for more in-depth information.
The shades in the rightmost column will only be correct if viewed on a calibrated monitor; you can check if the 50% luminance level of your monitor is correct here.
Note that LCD screens, even when correctly calibrated, often have a brightness that varies considerably depending on the viewing angle. When using the luminance level checker above, try stepping back and changing your position until the hatched rectangle in the center of the gray field appears to dissolve into the background.
If the hatched rectangle does not appear to be of the same brightness, then the "middle grays" rendered in the table are not correctly displayed on your screen.
* Context-dependent; an estimate is displayed here taking the environment where it appears in the article into account and assuming a neutrally lit surround of 200 cd/m2.
Off-grays
Off-grays are colors that are very close to achromatic grays, but whose red, green, and blue color codes are not exactly equal.
The color battleship gray is displayed in the adjacent image. It is so called because the color is the shade of gray from the specular micaceoushematite paint used for rustproofing iron and steel battleships.[18]
Gunmetal is a shade of gray that has a bluish purple tinge.[19] It describes the color of several metals used in industrial applications, such as tarnished gunmetal, or parkerized or blued steel.
Alpha Industries ® CWU-Bomberjacke CWU 45(N) in gunmetal grey
Nickel is a color that resembles the metal nickel. The coins commonly called "nickels" in the United States are a slightly lighter shade of this color.
This is supposed to be a metallic color; however, there is no mechanism for displaying metallic colors on a flat computer screen.
This color is identical with color sample No. 203 (identified as gray blue) at the following website: http://tx4.us/nbs/nbs-g.htm—The ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Colo(u)r Names (1955), a website for stamp collectors to evaluate the colors of their stamps.
Cadet gray is a slightly bluish shade of gray. The first recorded use of cadet grey as a color name in English was in 1912.[25]
Before 1912, the word cadet gray was used as a name for a type of military issue uniforms. Most famously, it was the color of the uniforms of the Confederate Army. In 1815, it had earlier become the color of the uniforms of the United States Military Academy (West Point).[26]
Glaucous (from the Latin glaucus, meaning "bluish-gray", from the Greek glaukos) is used to describe the pale gray or blue appearance of the surfaces of some plants, as well as in the names of birds, such as the glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus), glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens), glaucous macaw (Anodorhynchus glaucus), and glaucous tanager (Thraupis glaucocolpa).
Marengo is a shade of gray (black with gray tinge) or blue colors.[30][31] Sometimes the color is described as the color of a wet asphalt.
Warm grays
Warm grays are colors that are noticeably brownish, pinkish grays, or reddish purple grays. The color brown is itself a dark shade of orange. Brown colors also include dark shades of rose, red, and amber. Pink colors include light tones of rose, red, and orange. These tones of pink become warm grays when they are mixed with gray.
Cinereous is a color, ashy gray in appearance, either consisting of or resembling ashes, or a gray color tinged with copperybrown. It is derived from the Latin cinereous, from cinis (ashes).
The first recorded use of cinereous as a color name in English was in 1661.[34]
This is supposed to be a metallic color; however, there is no mechanism for displaying metallic colors on a flat computer screen.
Rocket metallic is one of the colors on the Resene Color List, a color list widely popular in Australia and New Zealand. The color "rocket metallic" was formulated in 1999.
The color displayed at right matches the color sample called taupe referenced below in the 1930 book A Dictionary of Color, the world standard for color terms before the invention of computers. However, the word taupe may often be used to refer to lighter shades of taupe today, and therefore another name for this color is dark taupe.
The first use of taupe as a color name in English was in the early 19th century.[35]
^Gallego, Rosa; Sanz, Juan Carlos (2005). Guía de coloraciones (Gallego, Rosa; Sanz, Juan Carlos (2005). Guide to Colorations) Madrid: H. Blume. ISBN84-89840-31-8
^
Paterson, Ian (2003), A Dictionary of Colour (1st paperback ed.), London: Thorogood (published 2004), p. 134, ISBN1-85418-375-3, OCLC60411025
^
Eastaugh, Nicholas; Walsh, Valentine; Chaplin, Tracey; Siddall, Ruth (2004), Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary of Historical Pigments, Butterworth-Heinemann, p. 139, ISBN978-0-7506-5749-5, OCLC56444720
^Maerz and Paul, p. 194; Color Sample of Davy’s Grey: p. 117 Plate 47 Color Sample A4
^The color displayed in the color box above matches the color called platinum in the 1930 book by Maerz and Paul. A Dictionary of Color. New York: McGraw-Hill; the color platinum is displayed on page 113, Plate 45, Color Sample A3.
^Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York: 1930 McGraw-Hill Page 202; Color Sample of Platinum: Page 113 Plate 45 Color Sample A3
^Maerz and Paul, p. 189; Color Sample of Ash grey: p. 77 Plate 27 Color Sample A2
Color coordinates
