How to compute color contrast ratio between two UIColor instances

Question

I'm looking for a concise way to compute the color contrast ratio between two UIColor instances in Swift. I've found examples that are close but are overly complicated or outdated.

Answer 1

UIColor extension with contrast ratio and luminance

The following UIColor extension includes a static and instance contrast ratio method. A bonus luminance method is included since it is used by the static contrastRatio(between:and:) method.

import UIKit

extension UIColor {

    static func contrastRatio(between color1: UIColor, and color2: UIColor) -> CGFloat {
        // https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G18.html#G18-tests

        let luminance1 = color1.luminance()
        let luminance2 = color2.luminance()

        let luminanceDarker = min(luminance1, luminance2)
        let luminanceLighter = max(luminance1, luminance2)

        return (luminanceLighter + 0.05) / (luminanceDarker + 0.05)
    }

    func contrastRatio(with color: UIColor) -> CGFloat {
        return UIColor.contrastRatio(between: self, and: color)
    }

    func luminance() -> CGFloat {
        // https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G18.html#G18-tests

        let ciColor = CIColor(color: self)

        func adjust(colorComponent: CGFloat) -> CGFloat {
            return (colorComponent < 0.04045) ? (colorComponent / 12.92) : pow((colorComponent + 0.055) / 1.055, 2.4)
        }

        return 0.2126 * adjust(colorComponent: ciColor.red) + 0.7152 * adjust(colorComponent: ciColor.green) + 0.0722 * adjust(colorComponent: ciColor.blue)
    }
}

Example Use

// static method
let contrastRatio1 = UIColor.contrastRatio(between: UIColor.black, and: UIColor.white)
print(contrastRatio1) // 21.0

// instance method
let contrastRatio2 = UIColor.black.contrastRatio(with: UIColor.white)
print(contrastRatio2) // 21.0

---

Note

Following these links:

• https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-4/#predefined
• https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core/issues/1629#issuecomment-509880306

For predefinite colorspace (like in iOS see this https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/712/) and also in general the correct THRESHOLD value is 0.04045 and not 0.03928 (read more)