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About this tool
Lock brand colours and generate tints, shades, hex, RGB, HSL and CMYK tables with contrast and ink coverage checks.
Brand Colour Palette Locker takes the small set of hex values a brand actually owns and generates everything downstream: a 50-900 tint and shade ramp, hex, RGB, HSL and CMYK for every stop, WCAG 2.2 contrast ratios so you know which stops can carry text, and a total ink coverage figure checked against the 300% coated and 260% uncoated press limits. Tints are produced by mixing toward white and shades by mixing toward black, so the ramp stays perceptually connected to the locked base rather than drifting in hue.
Open Brand Colour Palette Locker on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Add your input to the workspace.
Adjust the options until the result looks right.
Copy or download the output and put it to work.
Every ramp stop, format and token is derived from the locked hex, so nothing drifts between files.
Each stop reports the ratio for its best text colour, checked against WCAG 2.2 thresholds.
Total ink coverage is flagged against the coated and uncoated limits printers actually enforce.
WCAG 2.2 asks for at least 4.5:1 for normal body text and 3:1 for large text, which is 18.66 px bold or 24 px regular and above. 7:1 meets the stricter AAA level for body copy.
A tint mixes the base colour toward white and a shade mixes it toward black, channel by channel. Mixing a colour 50% toward white gives the 300 stop; mixing 30% toward black gives the 700 stop, which keeps the hue stable across the ramp.
It is the sum of the cyan, magenta, yellow and black percentages for one colour. Sheet-fed coated work is usually kept at or below 300%, and uncoated or web offset nearer 260%, because beyond that the ink cannot dry and offsets onto the next sheet.
Use them to check ink coverage and to brief a printer, not as final separations. The conversion here is the standard formula from sRGB and ignores the ICC profile, paper and press, so ask your printer to convert with the correct profile for the job.