Convert RGB color to English color name, like 'green' with Python

Question

I want to convert a color tuple to a color name, like 'yellow' or 'blue'

>>> im = Image.open("test.jpg")
>>> n, color = max(im.getcolors(im.size[0]*im.size[1]))
>>> print color
(119, 172, 152)

Is there a simple way in python to do this?

I think I found the droids you're looking for... http://pypi.python.org/pypi/webcolors/1.3#conversions-from-integer-rgb-triplets — mVChr, Mar 14 '12 at 00:19
I don't know if there's already a solution to this, but any such mapping will necessarily be heuristic and entirely subjective... Interesting question, though! — Will Vousden, Mar 14 '12 at 00:21
Do you want _precise_ colour names or approximations? For example, "green" is (obviously) `(0,255,0)`. What would you like `color((0,254,0))` to be? — Katriel, Mar 14 '12 at 00:25
@WillVousden not necessarily: some colours have official names. — Katriel, Mar 14 '12 at 00:25
Do you want the colors to be the same colors that are used when setting a font color in HTML (e.g., `Sample text`)? — Anderson Green, Jun 10 '13 at 14:58

score 119 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 15 '23 at 10:10

It looks like webcolors will allow you to do this:

rgb_to_name(rgb_triplet, spec='css3')

Convert a 3-tuple of integers, suitable for use in an rgb() color triplet, to its corresponding normalized color name, if any such name exists; valid values are html4, css2, css21 and css3, and the default is css3.

Example:

>>> rgb_to_name((0, 0, 0))
'black'

it is vice-versa-able:

>>> name_to_rgb('navy')
(0, 0, 128)

#To find the closest colour name:

However webcolors raises an exception if it can't find a match for the requested colour. I've written a little fix that delivers the closest matching name for the requested RGB colour. It matches by Euclidian distance in the RGB space.

import webcolors

def closest_colour(requested_colour):
    min_colours = {}
    for key, name in webcolors.CSS3_HEX_TO_NAMES.items():
        r_c, g_c, b_c = webcolors.hex_to_rgb(key)
        rd = (r_c - requested_colour[0]) ** 2
        gd = (g_c - requested_colour[1]) ** 2
        bd = (b_c - requested_colour[2]) ** 2
        min_colours[(rd + gd + bd)] = name
    return min_colours[min(min_colours.keys())]

def get_colour_name(requested_colour):
    try:
        closest_name = actual_name = webcolors.rgb_to_name(requested_colour)
    except ValueError:
        closest_name = closest_colour(requested_colour)
        actual_name = None
    return actual_name, closest_name

requested_colour = (119, 172, 152)
actual_name, closest_name = get_colour_name(requested_colour)

print("Actual colour name:", actual_name, ", closest colour name:", closest_name)

Output:

Actual colour name: None , closest colour name: cadetblue

It doesn't work for all RGB combinations like: print(webcolors.rgb_to_name((231, 201, 186))) throws error i.e. "ValueError: '#e7c9ba' has no defined color name in css3" — Asim, Apr 12 '20 at 13:06
@Asim, it looks like this code is for an earlier (probably Py2) version. For webcolors-1.11.1, you need to replace ```for key, name in webcolors.css3_hex_to_names.items():``` with ```for name, key in webcolors.CSS3_HEX_TO_NAMES.items():```. Then the rest of the code (aside from the print statement which just needs to be f-stringed and wrapped in parentheses) should work. — Andrew Stewart, Nov 17 '20 at 23:26
@AndrewStewart `for key, name in webcolors.CSS3_HEX_TO_NAMES.items():` worked for me with webcolors-1.11.1. I switched `key` and `name`. — Rajab Shakirov, Feb 08 '21 at 03:18

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 31 '14 at 22:49

For those who, like me, want a more familiar colour name, you can use the CSS 2.1 colour names, also provided by webcolors:

aqua: #00ffff
black: #000000
blue: #0000ff
fuchsia: #ff00ff
green: #008000
grey: #808080
lime: #00ff00
maroon: #800000
navy: #000080
olive: #808000
purple: #800080
red: #ff0000
silver: #c0c0c0
teal: #008080
white: #ffffff
yellow: #ffff00
orange: #ffa500

Just use fraxel's excellent answer and code for getting the closest colour, adapted to CSS 2.1:

def get_colour_name(rgb_triplet):
    min_colours = {}
    for key, name in webcolors.css21_hex_to_names.items():
        r_c, g_c, b_c = webcolors.hex_to_rgb(key)
        rd = (r_c - rgb_triplet[0]) ** 2
        gd = (g_c - rgb_triplet[1]) ** 2
        bd = (b_c - rgb_triplet[2]) ** 2
        min_colours[(rd + gd + bd)] = name
    return min_colours[min(min_colours.keys())]

You can have a greater accuracy using the CSS4 list, which is provided by `matplotlib.colors`. For example `import matplotlib.colors as mc` and `mycss4list = mc.CSS4_COLORS` — loved.by.Jesus, Jan 22 '20 at 16:30
I had to use the constant CSS21_HEX_TO_NAMES (uppercase) to get this to work. — John Hunt, Jul 19 '22 at 12:19

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 14 '12 at 00:26

12

There is a program called pynche which can change RGB to colour name in English for Python.

You can try to use the method ColorDB.nearest() in ColorDB.py which can do what you want.

You can find more information about this method here : ColorDB Pynche

answered Mar 14 '12 at 00:26

ChapMic

26,954
1
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20

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Provided link doesn't work anymore. Here you can find file [ColorDB.py](https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Tools/pynche/ColorDB.py). – ands Jan 16 '19 at 20:08
For anyone in the future viewing this post, here is a modified version of ColorDB.py I modified for python3: https://github.com/EricPanDev/python3-colordb/blob/main/ColorDB.py – Eric Apr 22 '23 at 06:05

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 14 '12 at 00:37

A solution to your problem consists in mapping the RGB values to the HSL color space.

Once you have the color in the HSL color space you can use the H (hue) component to map it the color. Note that color is a somewhat subjective concept, so you would have to define which ranges of H corresponds to a given color.

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 30 '20 at 13:43

The best solution I've found to solve this problem is the one provided by tux21b on this post:
find the colour name from a hexadecimal colour code
With the fix I've made (to avoid the division by zero error).
It is (from my understanding) an approximation calculation, that doesn't require to load a large set of data table to get an approaching value, and that allow to set your own set of needed colors.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 19 '22 at 09:20

I would just use a dictionary to figure out the base colors, and then find the closest one.:

def get_color_name(rgb):
colors = {
    "red": (255, 0, 0),
    "green": (0, 255, 0),
    "blue": (0, 0, 255),
    "yellow": (255, 255, 0),
    "magenta": (255, 0, 255),
    "cyan": (0, 255, 255),
    "black": (0, 0, 0),
    "white": (255, 255, 255)
}
min_distance = float("inf")
closest_color = None
for color, value in colors.items():
    distance = sum([(i - j) ** 2 for i, j in zip(rgb, value)])
    if distance < min_distance:
        min_distance = distance
        closest_color = color
return closest_color

# Testing
print(get_color_name((255, 0, 0)))  # red
print(get_color_name((0, 255, 0)))  # green
print(get_color_name((0, 0, 255)))  # blue

Convert RGB color to English color name, like 'green' with Python

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