Inclusive Color Space
Creative
skin tone color generation
SHOW HN2026
Legend
Inclusive Color Space
Simple algorithm and color space to generate diverse skin tones
toneyalexander.github.io#skin tone#color space#color picker#procedural generation#skin color
How HN took it
15 positive, 15 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 9 critical, out of 41 comments about the project. Thread score +0.18.
Idea: 6 for, 2 againstDesign: 3 for, 4 againstExecution: 0 for, 2 againstDocs: 1 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Beautiful, useful work with interactive demos
From 3 comments
This is beautiful work! First, I thought this would involve using PCA to go from 3D to 2D, which would result in an easier selector to use, but at the expense of representing…
vermarish on HNThis is excellent work! You’ve got a 49 year old and a 10 year old equally into it. That’s impressive - nice work.
hluska on HNI love this! Such a beautiful use of some real nerdy math to benefit humans in a way non-nerds would appreciate.
PullJosh on HN
Useful picker UI and visual R² sliders
From 2 comments
This part ( https://toneyalexander.github.io/inclusive-color-space/#picker-ui ) is especially cool. Would love to see this 3-D picker ability in the many character designers out…
xp84 on HNSetting R² to various large values like 50, 500 and 5000 then moving the slider around seems to give a decent and simple visual representation of what's happening.
zetanor on HN
Objections
Manual labeling process may encode bias
From 2 comments
This is beautiful work! First, I thought this would involve using PCA to go from 3D to 2D, which would result in an easier selector to use, but at the expense of representing…
vermarish on HNCould you explain the first step, "Manually Labeling Colors ? What did you manually label? I didn't quite follow. From the way the article is written, it sounds like you…
zestyping on HN
Does not account for lighting conditions
From 2 comments
I think it’s worthwhile to note this is under a light with a color temperature similar to sunlight. When you’re actually painting, skin can really be any color. Blue is a…
stu2b50 on HNI read the “limitations” section’s list of things that affect perceived skin tone and it didn’t mention lighting! This is pretty important as the available light determines the…
rebuilder on HN
Underrepresents pale skin and some skin tones
From 2 comments
Seems to underrepresent pale skin tone variety
383toast on HNInteresting though that the 1.5 setting (at least on my older iPhone) doesn’t really ever seem to cover the range of skin tones of indigenous Australians (“aboriginal” and Torres…
dofm on HN
Output lacks gamma correction
From 1 comment
This seems to do XYZ->RGB without any gamma correction. XYZ is linear, as is the transform to RGB, so we usually convert linear RGB to (gamma-encoded) sRGB at the end. The JS…
herf on HN
Requests
Add a license to the code
From 1 comment
Very neat project. Could I use this code to generate skin tones in my own project? Or more meant to just be educational/inspirational? I guess I'm wondering if you've considered…
rrradical on HN
More scientific labeling with multiple or expert labelers
From 1 comment
Thank you! I call out the manual labeling bias and also that a future work improvement would be to be scientific about that labeling process (multiple labelers, expert labelers),…
automatoney on HN
Questions
How the manual labeling was done
From 1 comment
Could you explain the first step, "Manually Labeling Colors ? What did you manually label? I didn't quite follow. From the way the article is written, it sounds like you…
zestyping on HN
Whether the code can be used in other projects
From 1 comment
Very neat project. Could I use this code to generate skin tones in my own project? Or more meant to just be educational/inspirational? I guess I'm wondering if you've considered…
rrradical on HN
Alternatives named
Pantone Skin Tones guide
From 1 comment
It's always entertaining to try to understand these things from first principles. Color and skin color in particular are very complex things to measure and model. It's not just a…
s1mon on HN
Pinterest visual skin tone model
From 1 comment
Nice. This is relatively old work (2020) but Pinterest had/has skin tone features, for example if you're searching for cosmetic products. Worth a check if anything might be…
ecesena on HN