ImageColor Module

The ImageColor module contains color tables and converters from CSS3-style color specifiers to RGB tuples. This module is used by PIL.Image.new() and the ImageDraw module, among others.

Color Names

The ImageColor module supports the following string formats:

  • Hexadecimal color specifiers, given as #rgb, #rgba, #rrggbb or #rrggbbaa, where r is red, g is green, b is blue and a is alpha (also called ‘opacity’). For example, #ff0000 specifies pure red, and #ff0000cc specifies red with 80% opacity (cc is 204 in decimal form, and 204 / 255 = 0.8).

  • RGB functions, given as rgb(red, green, blue) where the color values are integers in the range 0 to 255. Alternatively, the color values can be given as three percentages (0% to 100%). For example, rgb(255,0,0) and rgb(100%,0%,0%) both specify pure red.

  • Hue-Saturation-Lightness (HSL) functions, given as hsl(hue, saturation%, lightness%) where hue is the color given as an angle between 0 and 360 (red=0, green=120, blue=240), saturation is a value between 0% and 100% (gray=0%, full color=100%), and lightness is a value between 0% and 100% (black=0%, normal=50%, white=100%). For example, hsl(0,100%,50%) is pure red.

  • Hue-Saturation-Value (HSV) functions, given as hsv(hue, saturation%, value%) where hue and saturation are the same as HSL, and value is between 0% and 100% (black=0%, normal=100%). For example, hsv(0,100%,100%) is pure red. This format is also known as Hue-Saturation-Brightness (HSB), and can be given as hsb(hue, saturation%, brightness%), where each of the values are used as they are in HSV.

  • Common HTML color names. The ImageColor module provides some 140 standard color names, based on the colors supported by the X Window system and most web browsers. color names are case insensitive. For example, red and Red both specify pure red.

Functions

PIL.ImageColor.getrgb(color)[source]

Convert a color string to an RGB tuple. If the string cannot be parsed, this function raises a ValueError exception.

New in version 1.1.4.

PIL.ImageColor.getcolor(color, mode)[source]

Same as getrgb(), but converts the RGB value to a greyscale value if the mode is not color or a palette image. If the string cannot be parsed, this function raises a ValueError exception.

New in version 1.1.4.