HEX to HSL Converter

Conversion procedure

1. Parse HEX: optional leading “#” is removed. The parser expects exactly six hexadecimal digits for opaque colors (#RRGGBB), or eight digits when an alpha byte is included (#RRGGBBAA). Each pair is read as base 16 and becomes one channel in the 0–255 range. Invalid length or non-hex characters are rejected.
2. Resolve to internal sRGB: after parsing, the color is already expressed as three 8-bit channels. If only six hex digits were given, alpha is set to 1. If eight digits were given, the seventh and eighth nibbles define alpha as (alphaByte ÷ 255).
3. Build HSL: RGB is normalized to 0–1. Lightness L = (max + min)/2. Saturation S is 0 if max = min; otherwise S = (max − min) / (max + min) when L ≤ 0.5, or S = (max − min) / (2 − max − min) when L > 0.5. Hue (0–360°) is derived from which channel is maximal and the differences between channels. The page displays integer degrees and whole-number percentages: hsl(h, s%, l%).
4. Finalize: the result string is what you copy from the calculator. The line under the fields summarizes the path in short form (HSL ← sRGB ← HEX). Rounding is intentional so values read like typical CSS; tiny differences versus other apps can still appear because of integer hue, saturation, lightness/value, or ink percentages.
5. HSL/HSV reminder: when hue, saturation, and lightness/value are shown as whole numbers, more than one underlying RGB can produce the same text. Typing those integers back into a converter may therefore differ by ±1 from a color you first picked as HEX in the Color Picker—that is expected rounding behavior, not a broken formula.