Check if UIColor is dark or bright?

I need to determine whether a selected UIColor (picked by the user) is dark or bright, so I can change the color of a line of text that sits on top of that color, for better readability.

Here's an example in Flash/Actionscript (with demo): http://web.archive.org/web/20100102024448/http://theflashblog.com/?p=173

Any thoughts?

Cheers, Andre

UPDATE

Thanks to everyone's suggestions, here's the working code:

- (void) updateColor:(UIColor *) newColor
{
	const CGFloat *componentColors = CGColorGetComponents(newColor.CGColor);
	
	CGFloat colorBrightness = ((componentColors[0] * 299) + (componentColors[1] * 587) + (componentColors[2] * 114)) / 1000;
	if (colorBrightness < 0.5)
	{
		NSLog(@"my color is dark");
	}
	else
	{
		NSLog(@"my color is light");
	}
}

Thanks once again :)

W3C has the following: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/WD-AERT/#color-contrast

If you're only doing black or white text, use the color brightness calculation above. If it is below 125, use white text. If it is 125 or above, use black text.

edit 1: bias towards black text. :)

edit 2: The formula to use is ((Red value * 299) + (Green value * 587) + (Blue value * 114)) / 1000.

Here is a Swift (3) extension to perform this check.

This extension works with greyscale colors. However, if you are creating all your colors with the RGB initializer and not using the built in colors such as UIColor.black and UIColor.white, then possibly you can remove the additional checks.

extension UIColor {
    
    // Check if the color is light or dark, as defined by the injected lightness threshold.
    // Some people report that 0.7 is best. I suggest to find out for yourself.
    // A nil value is returned if the lightness couldn't be determined.
    func isLight(threshold: Float = 0.5) -> Bool? {
        let originalCGColor = self.cgColor
        
        // Now we need to convert it to the RGB colorspace. UIColor.white / UIColor.black are greyscale and not RGB.
        // If you don't do this then you will crash when accessing components index 2 below when evaluating greyscale colors.
        let RGBCGColor = originalCGColor.converted(to: CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(), intent: .defaultIntent, options: nil)
        guard let components = RGBCGColor?.components else {
            return nil
        }
        guard components.count >= 3 else {
            return nil
        }
        
        let brightness = Float(((components[0] * 299) + (components[1] * 587) + (components[2] * 114)) / 1000)
        return (brightness > threshold)
    }
}

Tests:

func testItWorks() {
    XCTAssertTrue(UIColor.yellow.isLight()!, "Yellow is LIGHT")
    XCTAssertFalse(UIColor.black.isLight()!, "Black is DARK")
    XCTAssertTrue(UIColor.white.isLight()!, "White is LIGHT")
    XCTAssertFalse(UIColor.red.isLight()!, "Red is DARK")
}

Note: Updated to Swift 3 12/7/18

Swift3

extension UIColor {
    var isLight: Bool {
        var white: CGFloat = 0
        getWhite(&white, alpha: nil)
        return white > 0.5
    }
}

// Usage
if color.isLight {
    label.textColor = UIColor.black
} else {
    label.textColor = UIColor.white
}

Using Erik Nedwidek's answer, I came up with that little snippet of code for easy inclusion.

- (UIColor *)readableForegroundColorForBackgroundColor:(UIColor*)backgroundColor {
    size_t count = CGColorGetNumberOfComponents(backgroundColor.CGColor);
    const CGFloat *componentColors = CGColorGetComponents(backgroundColor.CGColor);
    
    CGFloat darknessScore = 0;
    if (count == 2) {
        darknessScore = (((componentColors[0]*255) * 299) + ((componentColors[0]*255) * 587) + ((componentColors[0]*255) * 114)) / 1000;
    } else if (count == 4) {
        darknessScore = (((componentColors[0]*255) * 299) + ((componentColors[1]*255) * 587) + ((componentColors[2]*255) * 114)) / 1000;
    }
    
    if (darknessScore >= 125) {
        return [UIColor blackColor];
    }
    
    return [UIColor whiteColor];
}

My solution to this problem in a category (drawn from other answers here). Also works with grayscale colors, which at the time of writing none of the other answers do.

@interface UIColor (Ext)

	- (BOOL) colorIsLight;

@end

@implementation UIColor (Ext)

	- (BOOL) colorIsLight {
		CGFloat colorBrightness = 0;
		
		CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorGetColorSpace(self.CGColor);
		CGColorSpaceModel colorSpaceModel = CGColorSpaceGetModel(colorSpace);
		
		if(colorSpaceModel == kCGColorSpaceModelRGB){
			const CGFloat *componentColors = CGColorGetComponents(self.CGColor);
			
			colorBrightness = ((componentColors[0] * 299) + (componentColors[1] * 587) + (componentColors[2] * 114)) / 1000;
		} else {
			[self getWhite:&colorBrightness alpha:0];
		}
		
		return (colorBrightness >= .5f);
	}

@end

Swift 4 Version

extension UIColor {
    func isLight() -> Bool {
        guard let components = cgColor.components, components.count > 2 else {return false}
        let brightness = ((components[0] * 299) + (components[1] * 587) + (components[2] * 114)) / 1000
        return (brightness > 0.5)
    }
}

Simpler Swift 3 extension:

extension UIColor {
    func isLight() -> Bool {
        guard let components = cgColor.components else { return false }
        let redBrightness = components[0] * 299
        let greenBrightness = components[1] * 587
        let blueBrightness = components[2] * 114
        let brightness = (redBrightness + greenBrightness + blueBrightness) / 1000
        return brightness > 0.5
    }
}

For me using only CGColorGetComponents didn't worked, I get 2 components for UIColors like white. So I have to check the color spaceModel first. This is what I came up with that ended up being the swift version of @mattsven's answer.

Color space taken from here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16981916/4905076

extension UIColor {
    func isLight() -> Bool {
        if let colorSpace = self.cgColor.colorSpace {
            if colorSpace.model == .rgb {
                guard let components = cgColor.components, components.count > 2 else {return false}
                
                let brightness = ((components[0] * 299) + (components[1] * 587) + (components[2] * 114)) / 1000
                
                return (brightness > 0.5)
            }
            else {
                var white : CGFloat = 0.0
                
                self.getWhite(&white, alpha: nil)
                
                return white >= 0.5
            }
        }
                
        return false
    }

If you prefer the block version:

BOOL (^isDark)(UIColor *) = ^(UIColor *color){
    const CGFloat *component = CGColorGetComponents(color.CGColor);
    CGFloat brightness = ((component[0] * 299) + (component[1] * 587) + (component[2] * 114)) / 1000;

    if (brightness < 0.75)
        return  YES;
    return NO;
};

Following method is find color is light or dark in Swift language based on white in color.

func isLightColor(color: UIColor) -> Bool 
{
   var white: CGFloat = 0.0
   color.getWhite(&white, alpha: nil)
    		
   var isLight = false
    		
   if white >= 0.5
   {
       isLight = true
   	   NSLog("color is light: %f", white)
   }
   else
   {
      NSLog("Color is dark: %f", white)
   }
    		
   return isLight
}

Following method is find color is light or dark in Swift using color components.

func isLightColor(color: UIColor) -> Bool 
{
     var isLight = false
            		
     var componentColors = CGColorGetComponents(color.CGColor)
           		
     var colorBrightness: CGFloat = ((componentColors[0] * 299) + (componentColors[1] * 587) + (componentColors[2] * 114)) / 1000;
     if (colorBrightness >= 0.5)
     {
        isLight = true
        NSLog("my color is light")
     }
     else
     {
        NSLog("my color is dark")
     }	
     return isLight
}

For everything that's not grayish, the RGB inverse of a color is usually highly contrasted with it. The demo just inverts the color and desaturates it (converts it to a gray).

But generating a nice soothing combination of colors is quite complicated. Look at :

http://particletree.com/notebook/calculating-color-contrast-for-legible-text/

UIColor has the following method to convert to HSB color space:

- (BOOL)getHue:(CGFloat *)hue saturation:(CGFloat *)saturation brightness:(CGFloat *)brightness alpha:(CGFloat *)alpha;

- (BOOL)isColorLight:(UIColor*)color
{
    CGFloat white = 0;
    [color getWhite:&white alpha:nil];
    return (white >= .85);
}

Added Swift 5 version:

var white: CGFloat = 0.0
color.getWhite(&white, alpha: nil)
return white >= .85 // Don't use white background

If you want to find the brightness of the color, here is some pseudo code:

public float GetBrightness(int red, int blue, int green)
{
    float num = red / 255f;
    float num2 = blue / 255f;
    float num3 = green / 255f;
    float num4 = num;
    float num5 = num;
    if (num2 > num4)
        num4 = num2;
    if (num3 > num4)
        num4 = num3;
    if (num2 < num5)
        num5 = num2;
    if (num3 < num5)
        num5 = num3;
    return ((num4 + num5) / 2f);
}

If it is > 0.5 it is bright, and otherwise dark.