Free Online Color Temperature Tool

1. Drag the Temperature slider from 1000K (very warm) to 12000K (very cool).
2. Or click a preset (Candle, Tungsten, Daylight, Cloudy, Overcast) to jump to a common value.
3. Watch the swatch update live; read the hex and rgb() in the readout.
4. Click the copy icon to copy the hex.

Color temperature describes the color of light by the temperature, in kelvins, at which a theoretical black body would emit it. A candle flame is around 1900K and looks warm orange; tungsten lamps are 3200K; daylight at noon is around 5500K (the D55 illuminant); a partly cloudy sky is 6500K (the D65 illuminant used as the sRGB reference); an overcast sky reaches 7500K and looks cool blue. The visual perception walks red, orange, yellow, white, blue as temperature climbs.

Photographers use the scale to set white balance; lighting designers use it to specify bulbs and stage rigs; UI designers use it to pick background tints that suggest a mood. This converter applies Tanner Helland's polynomial approximation — accurate to about ±1% across the visible range — and shows the resulting hex, rgb() and a live swatch.

Presets jump straight to common values without manual slider hunting.