How to average two (or more) hexadecimal color codes into one color code?

[noseherbalindo]

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Product Feedback

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I am trying to find a nice, sky blue color code from an image I have. I have taken several samples across the image and have come up with a small list:

#77A3E0, #7BA6DD, #7FAAE1, #6E9AD7, #6F9BD8
I like to try to do things for myself before looking around the web, so I thought I would give this a shot. Breaking down a hex color code you get this:

XXXXXX = RRGGBB = RR GG BB
So, taking my first two colors:

#77A3E0, #7BA6DD
I opened the calculator application on my Windows 11 machine, and set it to "Programmer" mode, so that I can manipulate hexadecimal numbers. This is what happened:

#77A3E0 + #7BA6DD = 77A3E0, 7BA6DD = 77 A3 E0, 7B A6 DD
That led to this:

((77 + 7B) / 2) = (F2 / 2) = 79
((A3 + A6) / 2) = (149 / 2) = A4
((E0 + DD) / 2) = (1BD / 2) = DE
The answer:

79 A4 DE = 79A4DE = #79A4DE
I wanted to double-check if what I got was correct, so I finally googled what I wanted. I found three sites to check with:

https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/color-blend/

https://www.utilitytoolslab.com/color-tools/color-mixer

https://rapidtoolset.com/en/tool/average-color-calculator

The UtilityToolsLab gave a range of results, but all gave the same answer for the 0% "midpoint", which is: #77A3E0, which is close to what I have, but not the same. I checked against UtilityToolsLab's multiple "midpoints" and none of those is what I came up with either.

So, what am I missing for averaging tow or more hexadecimal colors into a sample average?

[nerufuyo]

Your approach is basicly correct. The part you're missing is the rounding.

For your two colors the channel averages are:

R: (0x77 + 0x7B) / 2 = 0x79
G: (0xA3 + 0xA6) / 2 = 164.5 decimal = 0xA4.8
B: (0xE0 + 0xDD) / 2 = 222.5 decimal = 0xDE.8
So #79A4DE is what you get if you truncate the fractional parts. If you round to the nearest integer instead, you get:

#79A5DF
For more colors, do exactly the same thing: sum each R, G and B component seperately, divide each sum by the number of colors, round, then convert back to hex.

For all five colors in the question, that gives approximately:

R = 118
G = 161.6
B = 220.2

=> #76A2DC
Also, a mixer showing #77A3E0 at "0%" isn't saying that's the average. In interpolation, 0% normally means "100% of the first color". The midpoint would be 50%.

One small caveat: RGB hex values are normally sRGB, which is gamma encoded. For a physically correct color average you'd convert sRGB to linear RGB first, average there, then convert back. For colors this close together though, the difference will be very small.

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