HWB—A More Intuitive Hue-Based Color Model

Abstract The two most common color selector models, other than RGB (Red-Green-Blue), are the hue-based HSV (Hue-Saturation-Value) and HSL (HueSaturation-Lightness) color models. It is shown that both of these models are flawed. A closely related model, HWB (Hue-Whiteness-Blackness), is introduced that avoids the flaws, is slightly faster to compute, and is very easy to teach to new users: Choose a hue. Lighten it with white. Darken it with black. We explain that whitening is not the opposite of blackening.