---
id: colour
version: "0.1.5"
license: BSD 3-Clause License
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: abandoned
---

# colour — converts and manipulates various color representation (HSL, RVB, web, X11, ...)

License: permissive · Maintenance: abandoned · Downloads: 2.0M/mo

## What it is and what it does

Colour is a lightweight library for working with colors in Python. It provides a single Color object that can be instantiated from multiple formats—named colors (e.g., 'red'), RGB tuples, HSL tuples, 3-digit hex, or 6-digit hex—and converts freely between them. You can read and modify individual color components (red, green, blue, hue, saturation, luminance) and generate smooth color gradients between two colors. The library also includes standalone conversion functions (rgb2hex, hsl2rgb, etc.) for those who prefer functional style.

The package has no runtime dependencies, making it trivial to install. However, it has been abandoned since 2017 and receives no active maintenance. The codebase is documented with extensive doctest examples, and the library is designed to be simple and Pythonic. It's suitable for small projects, scripts, and educational use, but should be carefully evaluated for production systems that need ongoing support or compatibility with the latest Python versions.

Use it for:

- Generate color scales or gradients for data visualization, heatmaps, or UI design mockups.
- Parse and normalize user-supplied color input (hex, RGB, named colors) in web applications or CLI tools.
- Convert between color formats in image processing or graphics pipelines that need both human-readable and machine-readable representations.
- Build simple color-picking or color-identification features in applications.
- Create CSS or HTML color specifications programmatically from RGB or HSL values.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Converts between and manipulates color representations including RGB, HSL, hex (3- and 6-digit), and named web colors, with support for color gradients and comparison.

Yes, if you need simple color conversion and manipulation in a small script or educational project and are comfortable with an unmaintained package. No, if you require active maintenance, support for modern Python versions, or a production-grade library—consider a maintained alternative. The zero dependencies and permissive license make it low-risk to try, but the 2017 last release and abandoned status mean no bug fixes or feature updates will arrive.

## Install

pip install colour
uv add colour
poetry add colour

## Installing colour

Before you install: No runtime dependencies and low install friction. However, the package is abandoned—last release was 2017-11-19 and last commit 2023-07-30—so expect no active maintenance or support for modern Python versions.

License in practice: BSD 3-Clause License (permissive) allows use in most projects, commercial or open-source, with minimal restrictions beyond attribution.

Quickstart:

pip install colour

from colour import Color

c = Color("red")
print(c.hex)  # '#f00'
print(c.rgb)  # (1.0, 0.0, 0.0)

red = Color("red")
blue = Color("blue")
for color in red.range_to(blue, 5):
    print(color)

Package is abandoned; classifiers list Python 2.7, 3.3–3.6 but no requires_python constraint, so compatibility with modern Python versions is unverified.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package actually works on Python 3.7 and later despite being last released in 2017.
- Whether the web color naming follows current W3C standards or is frozen at the time of last release.
- Performance characteristics when generating large color gradients.

## Package facts

- License: BSD 3-Clause License (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: abandoned
- Downloads: 2.0M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

color conversion RGB HSL hex, color manipulation library, web color parsing, color gradient generation, color space conversion, color-conversion, unmaintained

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/colour) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/colour/)