I was looking at a web page listing specific colors and it had a spot next to each color listing a Hexadecimal. What the hex is a Hexadecimal? I did google it but have math dyslexia (dyscalculia) so had trouble understanding. Grazie.
In: Mathematics
Hex is just another notation using not only numbers but also letters (from A to F). So you start off at 0 in both systems (dec and hex) up to 9 and they’re the same. Except decimal has to roll over at that point and add a new number. So you end up with 10. Hex had a trick up its sleeve: once the numbers end, it goes to A. So A in hex is 10 in dec.
Now, in computing a byte can have 256 possible values, from 0 to 255. In hex that’s 0 to FF.
And we finally get to colours. A colour is made up of combinations of Red, Green and Blue, each component having one byte assigned as its value. So 0-255 (or 0-FF). So if your colour is full red, it would be a completely “lit” red value and nothing on green and blue. So 255,0,0 or FF0000. Same goes for a full green (0,255,0/00FF00) or blue. A complete black has 0 on all the values (000000) while a full white has 255 on all values, or FF (so FFFFFF) with shades of grey inbetween (they need to have equal values on all rgb components). However, a full magenta would contain red and blue and no green, so FF00FF (255,0,255).
As you play with this spectrum you can obtain different colours and shades.
That’s it, in a nutshell.
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