A hue with white added — a lighter, softer version of the same colour.
Produced by increasing lightness while holding hue constant; often reduces perceived saturation as a side effect.
Tint is the opposite of shade, not a synonym for it — a common mix-up.
Baby pink is a tint of red.
Distinguishing tint from shade avoids miscommunication when describing a lighter vs. darker version of a colour.
A tint is described by how far lightness has risen from the parent colour: a higher L* or OKLCH L at roughly the same hue angle. On a screen it is made by raising all three channels towards 255. In paint it is made by adding white pigment, and the proportion of colourant to white base is what a tinting machine actually controls.
| Colour | HSL hue | CIELAB L* | CIELAB chroma | HSV saturation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red #ff0000 | 0° | 53.2 | 104.6 | 100% |
| Pink #ffc0cb | 350° | 83.6 | 24.4 | 25% |
| Pastel Pink #ffd1dc | 346° | 88.0 | 17.8 | 18% |
| Baby Pink #f9dde2 | 349° | 90.5 | 10.5 | 11% |
From Red to Baby pink, L* climbs from 53.2 to 90.5 while chroma collapses from 104.6 to 10.5. The named pinks are not simply red plus white: Pink sits at 350°, 10° round the wheel towards magenta, the slightly cool lean the word pink usually implies.
How this was calculated: The four catalogue colours converted from HEX; the pinks are named colours chosen from the red family, so the hue drift is theirs and not an artefact of a formula.
Choosing a pale wall colour from a small chip of a strong one.
A tint keeps only a fraction of the parent's chroma, so on a chip it can look nearly white. Spread over a whole room it reads much more strongly coloured than the chip suggested, which is the usual reason a 'barely pink' white turns out pink.
Generating the light end of a brand palette by mixing the brand colour with white.
Mixed in sRGB or CIELAB, a blue's tints lean towards purple. Mixing in OKLab holds the hue, so the pale steps still look like the brand colour.