Complementary
Two colors from opposite sides of the wheel. They make each other look more vivid, which is why the pairing is used for anything that needs to stand out.
White screen
A white screen is a display filled edge to edge with pure white. It is used to spot dust and smudges when cleaning a monitor, to reveal dead or stuck pixels, as a soft fill light for video calls and photography, and as a makeshift lightbox for tracing.
Quick colors, then fill the screen
Or a gradient
Or let it move
#FFFFFFrgb(255, 255, 255) · hsl(0, 0%, 100%)
- Cleaning a monitor or laptop display
- Finding dead and stuck pixels
- Fill light for video calls and selfies
- Tracing and light-box work
White color codes
Every value for #FFFFFF, ready to paste. Click any code to copy it.
| Channel | Decimal | Share | Hex | Octal | Binary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | 255 | 100% | FF | 377 | 11111111 |
| Green | 255 | 100% | FF | 377 | 11111111 |
| Blue | 255 | 100% | FF | 377 | 11111111 |
The nearest web-safe color is #FFFFFF, from the 216-color palette browsers agreed on before displays could be trusted with more.
Shades, tints and tones
Every step is generated from #FFFFFF. Click a swatch to copy its hex.
Shades of white
A shade is the base color with black mixed in. Shades read as deeper and more dramatic, and they are what you reach for when a color needs to recede or carry weight.
Tints of white
A tint is the base color with white mixed in. Tints turn pastel as they lighten, which makes them useful for backgrounds and for anything that has to sit behind text.
Tones of white
A tone is the base color with grey mixed in. Tones lose the shout without losing the hue, and they are usually what separates a considered palette from a loud one.
The white scale
The same color as the 50 to 950 ladder every CSS framework uses, with #FFFFFF at 500. Click a step to copy its hex, or take the whole scale as variables for a design system.
Color schemes built on white
Harmonies are positions on the color wheel rather than matters of taste, which is why they keep working across very different designs.
Analogous
Three neighbours on the wheel. Nothing competes, so the result reads calm and settled, closer to how colour behaves in nature.
Split complementary
The base plus the two colors either side of its complement. It keeps most of the contrast while being much easier to balance.
Triadic
Three colors spaced evenly around the wheel. Strong and lively, and usually best with one dominant color and two accents.
Tetradic
Two complementary pairs, forming a rectangle on the wheel. The richest scheme available, and the hardest to keep from shouting.
Monochromatic
One hue at different lightness levels. Effortlessly cohesive, and the safest way to build a palette around a brand color.
Colors close to #FFFFFF
Near neighbours, for when this color is almost right. Each one shifts hue, saturation or lightness by a small step.
White color palettes
Five-color palettes built around #FFFFFF, each following a different scheme. Click any swatch to copy it, or open the generator to build your own.
Analogous
Complementary
Triadic
Monochromatic
Open the palette generator to lock the colors you like and regenerate the rest.
Contrast and readability
Whether white works as text, and what to put on top of it when it is the background. Ratios follow WCAG 2.1, where 4.5 is the bar for body text and 3 for large text.
White text on white background
1:1 · PoorLarge text at 24 pixels
Body text at 16 pixels. A flat field of color removes every variable, which is what makes it useful for judging a display.
- Body AA
- Body AAA
- Large AA
- Large AAA
White text on black background
21:1 · ExcellentLarge text at 24 pixels
Body text at 16 pixels. A flat field of color removes every variable, which is what makes it useful for judging a display.
- Body AA
- Body AAA
- Large AA
- Large AAA
Used the other way round, #FFFFFF as a background takes #000000 text. That is the higher-contrast of the two, and it is what the tool picks automatically for any chrome sitting on your color.
White reads better on a black background of the two. Contrast is a property of the pair, not of one color, so a color that fails here can still be perfectly usable against a different partner.
About white
What this color does, where it works, and what it reveals about the screen showing it.
What white is
The only color where every subpixel runs at full output at once. That makes it the brightest thing a display can show, the most power-hungry on an OLED panel, and the most revealing surface for anything sitting on the glass in front of it.
The hex code
White is
Where it works
Cleaning, because dust and fingerprints scatter light and turn into visible grey clouds against a uniform field. Tracing, because a tablet showing white is a lightbox. And video calls, which has quietly become the most common reason people open a tool like this at all.
How it reads
White reads as clean, clinical and empty, which is exactly why galleries and product photography use it. It carries no mood of its own, so it lets whatever sits in front of it do the talking. In a dark room at full brightness it stops feeling neutral and starts feeling like glare.
On a display
Because all three subpixels fire together, a single dead subpixel hides completely on white. A fully dead pixel still shows as a dark dot. This is why a proper panel check cycles white, black, red, green and blue rather than stopping at the first one.
As a light
A phone, tablet or laptop filled with white is a genuinely good soft light source, because the panel is large relative to your face. That size is what softens the shadows, and it is what photographers pay real money for. Drop the brightness if it looks harsh, and try warm white if plain white feels cold against your skin.
Getting a clean white
Night-shift modes and blue-light filters tint white toward orange, and adaptive brightness changes the level under you mid-task. Turn both off before judging a panel or using the screen as a reference light, or you are measuring your settings rather than your display.
Common questions
- What is the hex code for white?
- The hex code for white is
- What is white in RGB?
- White in RGB is 255, 255, 255, meaning red, green and blue are all at full output at the same time. In CMYK it is 0, 0, 0, 0, because CMYK is a subtractive model used for print, where white is the absence of ink rather than the presence of light.
- How do I make my screen completely white?
- This page already loads set to pure white, so press F or the Fill screen button and it covers your whole display with no interface left on it. Press Escape when you are done. If you have moved the sliders, the button beside Fill screen puts you back to plain white.
- Why is a white screen good for cleaning a monitor?
- Dust, fingerprints and dried spots scatter light. Against a bright uniform white they show up as grey or shadowed patches that are almost invisible against normal desktop content, so you can see exactly what you have missed.
- Can a white screen work as a light for video calls?
- Yes. A laptop or tablet held just off camera and filled with white gives soft, even, front-on light that flatters faces far better than an overhead bulb. Use the brightness slider to avoid blowing out the exposure.
- Does a white screen use more battery?
- On an OLED or AMOLED display, yes, noticeably. White lights every subpixel at full power. On a traditional LCD the backlight is always on, so the color you show makes very little difference to battery life.
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