Get Slightly Lighter and Darker Color from UIColor

Question

I was looking to be able to turn any UIColor into a gradient. The way I am intending to do this is by using Core Graphics to draw a gradient. What I am trying to do is to ge

Answer 1

I just wanted to give the same result, in RGB, than

• placing the color with alpha x% over a white background to lighten
• placing the color with alpha x% over a black background to darken

Which gives the same result, AFAIK, than picking the color in a gradient 'color to white' or 'color to black', at x% of the gradient size.

For that purpose, the math is simple:

extension UIColor {
    func mix(with color: UIColor, amount: CGFloat) -> UIColor {
        var red1: CGFloat = 0
        var green1: CGFloat = 0
        var blue1: CGFloat = 0
        var alpha1: CGFloat = 0

        var red2: CGFloat = 0
        var green2: CGFloat = 0
        var blue2: CGFloat = 0
        var alpha2: CGFloat = 0

        getRed(&red1, green: &green1, blue: &blue1, alpha: &alpha1)
        color.getRed(&red2, green: &green2, blue: &blue2, alpha: &alpha2)

        return UIColor(
            red: red1 * (1.0 - amount) + red2 * amount,
            green: green1 * (1.0 - amount) + green2 * amount,
            blue: blue1 * (1.0 - amount) + blue2 * amount,
            alpha: alpha1
        )
    }
}

Here are examples with some colors