If you look very closely on your computer monitor, you will see that the picture is made up of tiny dots of light. The dots are called pixels. Each dot is either red, green, or blue. Your monitor contains phosphors that are lit up from behind. The phosphors are the chemicals that your monitor uses to make the three different colors.

          Every other color that is displayed on your monitor is comprised of different amounts of the those three colors. The monitor can either increase, or decrease the intensity of each of the three colors. The intensity of each color ranges from 0 to 255 for a total of 256  levels of intensity. (255 plus one more for 0).

          The lowest level is 0. At 0 intensity, the color is turned off. The highest level is 255. As the level of intensity changes for each of the three colors, the color on your monitor changes. The intensity level of the three colors is measured by the RGB code.

          It's sort of like using a dimmer light switch for each of the three colors with 256 settings on the dial, starting at 0 and ending at 255. At 0 the light is turned off. Then as you rotate the switch, the light gets brighter. When the switch is completely turned on, the light can't get any brighter and the setting would be 255.

          The RGB Code is used to measure the amount of Red, Green, and Blue there is in each color. It consists of three sets of numbers. Each set of numbers ranges from 0 to 255. The first set of numbers shows the intensity of the color Red, the second set shows the intensity of the color Green, and the third set shows the intensity of the color Blue.

          For example, an RGB code of:  000, 000, 255 tells us that there is no red or green at all and there is the maximum amount of blue. This is the code for the highest intensity of pure blue.

          The RGB code for Black is: 000, 000, 000. All of the colors are at their lowest intensity level. The RGB code for White is: 255, 255, 255. To make White, all three colors are at their maximum intensity level. Use the Color Machine to see how the RGB code works to make colors.

          The RGB code can also be expressed as a Hexadecimal code which uses "base sixteen" instead of "base ten". The hexadecimal (hex) code uses six digits. The first two digits represent the intensity of the color RED used. The middle two digits in the Hex code represent the intensity of the color BLUE used in that color and the last two digits of the Hex code represent the intensity of the color BLUE that is used to make that color.

          Use the Hexadecimal Table to see a list of all the 256 RGB numbers and their corresponding Hex codes.

          The RGB Color Shades Table lists all 256 shades for each of the three RGB colors.

          Use the Hex Converter to convert the hexadecimal code of your color to RGB. You can put in different RGB or Hex codes and watch the color of the page change to the color that is generated by that code. Your browser must support JavaScript in order to use it.