About HEX to HSV
HEX to HSV expresses a hex color in terms of hue, saturation and value. Where HSL places the pure color at 50% lightness and measures toward both black and white, HSV places it at full value and measures only downward to black — a distinction that matters when you work with color pickers, shaders or tools that expose an HSV wheel.
The output has the shape hsv(H, S%, V%) with integer components. #4F46E5 comes back with a hue in the violet range at a high saturation and a value close to 90%, which is a compact description of how vivid and how bright the color is.
One practical warning belongs here. hsv() is not a CSS function — browsers do not understand it, so do not paste the line into a stylesheet. It is a human-readable label. If you need a value CSS accepts, run the same input through HEX to HSL or take the HEX line from the Color Converter.
The conversion is one-way and the numbers are rounded to whole units, so it is a description rather than a precise source of truth: converting the result back through a picker will not necessarily land on the original hex because the fractional parts have been dropped. There is no option to show more decimal places, and hue is reported in degrees only — no radians, no normalised zero-to-one scale — with saturation and value fixed as percentages rather than as fractions. Because the input side accepts hex, rgb(), hsl() and named colours but not the hsv() form this page prints, a round trip has to go by way of one of those other notations rather than straight back in.
How to use HEX to HSV
- 1 Type or paste the hex color into the field.
- 2 Read the hsv() line: hue in degrees, saturation and value as percentages.
- 3 Use the numbers in an HSV-aware tool or picker — not as a raw CSS value.
Frequently asked questions
How does HSV differ from HSL?
Both share a hue and a saturation-like component, but the third component differs. HSL lightness spans black to white with the pure color in the middle, while HSV value spans black to the fully lit color, with white appearing only when saturation drops to zero.
Can I paste hsv() back into this tool?
No. The parser accepts hex, rgb(), hsl() and named colors, but not the hsv() notation this tool prints. To convert the other way, enter the equivalent hex or rgb() value.
Why is the value component often so high?
Because value is the brightest of the three channels expressed as a percentage. Most saturated web colors have at least one channel near full, which pushes the value figure up even for colors that do not look especially bright.
Is the output valid CSS?
No. CSS defines rgb(), hsl() and their alpha variants, but not hsv(). Treat the hsv() line as reference information and use the hex form in your code.
Free, online, and private
Free to use
HEX to HSV is completely free. There is no account to create, no login, and no hidden charge or usage limit.
Runs online in your browser
It is a free online tool that runs entirely in your browser. Nothing to download or install — open the page and start using it right away.
Your data stays private
All processing happens locally on your device. Your input is never uploaded, stored, or tracked, so it never leaves your browser.
How HEX to HSV behaves in detail
These are the specifics of this implementation — the exact ranges, defaults and fixed settings you are working with.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Output format | hsv(243, 76%, 90%) — a labelled triple, and hsv() is not a CSS colour function |
| Rounding | hue, saturation and value are each rounded to whole numbers |
| Value definition | value is the largest of the three channels, so a fully saturated colour reports 100 percent where HSL would report 50 percent lightness |
| Greys | equal channels give hue 0, with saturation and value both resting on the channel level |
| Update mode | live, on every keystroke |
Compiled from the implementation of this tool and checked against it by itoolnet.
What HEX to HSV does not do
Knowing the edges of a tool saves more time than another list of its features. These are the cases where it will not do what you might expect.
- The line cannot be pasted into a stylesheet. No browser understands hsv(), so this is a description of the colour for a human to read, and anything that has to render must be written as hsl() or rgb() instead.
- It is display-only in the other direction too: the reverse page takes three separate numbers rather than an hsv() string, so a triple copied from here cannot simply be pasted back into the matching converter.
- Rounding is applied to all three figures, so two dark colours that differ slightly in value print the same triple even though their RGB values would still distinguish them.
Tested and documented by itoolnet, the team that builds and maintains this site.