Shades & Tints Generator
Generate perfect lighter and darker variations of any color
Tints (Lighter)
Shades (Darker)
Understanding Color Variations
Every successful design system starts with a carefully crafted color palette, but picking a single shade of blue isn't enough. You need lighter versions for backgrounds, darker versions for text and borders, and subtle variations for interactive states. That's where tints and shades come in - they're the building blocks of professional color systems used by design frameworks like Tailwind CSS, Material Design, and Bootstrap.
Tints: Adding Light
When you mix a color with white, you create a tint. Each percentage step adds more white, resulting in progressively lighter variations. Tints are perfect for:
- • Background colors and cards
- • Disabled or muted states
- • Subtle highlights and overlays
- • Light mode color schemes
Shades: Adding Depth
Mixing a color with black creates a shade. Darker colors add visual weight and hierarchy to your designs. Common uses include:
- • Text and headings
- • Borders and dividers
- • Hover and active button states
- • Dark mode color schemes
Pro Tip: Building a Design System
When building a consistent design system, start with your brand's primary color. Use this tool to generate 9 variations - 4 tints (lighter), your base color in the middle, and 4 shades (darker). Export as CSS variables and reference them throughout your stylesheets. This creates a predictable, maintainable color scale that makes your entire application feel cohesive.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a shade and a tint?
A tint is created by adding white to a pure color, making it progressively lighter. A shade is created by adding black to a color, making it progressively darker. Both maintain the original hue but vary in lightness. There's also a third variation called a tone, which is created by adding gray (both black and white) to a color, reducing its saturation.
How many shades and tints should I generate for a design system?
Most design systems use 9-11 steps (e.g., Tailwind uses 50, 100, 200... 900). This provides enough variation for backgrounds, text, borders, and hover states without overwhelming your palette. For simpler projects, 5 steps (very light, light, base, dark, very dark) is often sufficient.
Why do designers need color variations?
Color variations serve multiple purposes: lighter tints work well for backgrounds, cards, and disabled states; the base color is your primary brand color; darker shades are perfect for text, borders, hover effects, and pressed states. Having a consistent scale ensures visual harmony across your entire design.
Can I export the generated colors as CSS?
Yes! Click the Export CSS button to copy all variations as CSS custom properties (variables). You'll get code like --color-tint-1: #E8F0FE; that you can paste directly into your stylesheet's :root selector.
How accurate is the color mixing?
Our tool uses linear interpolation in RGB color space, which is the standard method for web colors. For each step, we calculate the precise percentage mix between your base color and pure white (for tints) or pure black (for shades). This matches how CSS gradients and color-mix() work.
What are the color names shown for each variation?
Every generated shade and tint is automatically matched to its closest name from our database of 31,879 curated color names. This helps you communicate colors more naturally ("Use Steel Blue instead of #4682B4") and makes your design documentation more readable.
How is this different from a color palette generator?
A palette generator creates harmonious colors based on color theory rules (complementary, analogous, triadic). A shades/tints generator creates variations of a single color by adjusting lightness only. Both are essential: use a palette generator to pick your brand colors, then use this tool to create variations of each.
Can I use these colors in Tailwind CSS?
Absolutely. Tailwind expects a color scale from 50 (lightest) to 900 (darkest). Generate your shades and tints, then add them to your tailwind.config.js under theme.extend.colors. Our default 9-step output maps well to Tailwind's 100-900 scale.
Why do some tints look washed out?
When you add white to a highly saturated color, you're simultaneously increasing lightness and decreasing saturation. This is mathematically correct but can feel "washed out." To maintain vibrancy, you might manually adjust the saturation of lighter tints in a tool like our Color Picker.
Is this tool free to use?
Yes, completely free with no limits. All processing happens in your browser - we don't store your colors or require any sign-up. Use it as many times as you need for personal or commercial projects.