What it does
HCL Wizard combines palette construction, colour picking and colour-vision emulation. Its guides separate categorical colours, ordered sequences and scales that diverge around a meaningful centre.
Choose the palette type from the data, then adjust hue, chroma and luminance. The linked colorspace guide also documents power controls for changing how quickly colourfulness or brightness develops along a scale. Example maps, heat maps and scatter plots show the selected palette in context.
The tools can desaturate a palette or simulate several colour-vision deficiencies. A separate emulator accepts JPG or PNG images and a severity setting. These are useful checks for a finished chart, alongside the palette preview.
The same interfaces can run locally through the R colorspace package. Its individual-colour picker accepts a HEX value, coordinates or sliders and returns the selected colours to R. Parameters vary with the chosen palette type; a categorical set does not expose every sequential-scale control.
Strengths
- Palette types are tied to the meaning of the data.
- Example plots provide context beyond isolated swatches.
- The documented R interfaces support local use.
Watch out for
- Available parameters depend on the selected palette type.
Best for
- Designing and assessing statistical colour scales
Sources
- HCL Wizard tools and palette overview (Oct 27, 2026)
- Official colorspace guide to HCL Wizard interfaces (Oct 27, 2026)
- HCL palette construction and output values (Oct 27, 2026)