CSS Filter Generator

Overview

A slider deck for the eight CSS filter functions: blur, brightness, contrast, grayscale, hue-rotate, saturate, sepia and invert. Sliders at their neutral value are omitted from the output, so the generated declaration stays minimal, and when everything is neutral the tool emits filter: none. The effect applies live to a colorful gradient sample so hue shifts are easy to judge.

How It Works

Move any of the eight sliders; each shows its unit, from pixels for blur to degrees for hue-rotate and percentages for everything else. The preview panel applies the composed filter to a fixed multi-hue gradient so you can see colour and tone changes at once. The Reset All button returns every slider to neutral. The code panel lists only the functions you actually moved, joined in a fixed order, and the Copy CSS button copies the finished filter declaration.

Step-by-Step Usage Guide

1. Move the sliders for the effects you want.
2. Watch the live gradient preview update as you drag.
3. Use Reset All to start over from a neutral state.
4. Copy the compact filter declaration from the code panel.

Technical Specifications & Standards

Function order is not cosmetic: MDN documents that multiple filter functions apply in the order listed, and blur followed by contrast behaves differently from contrast followed by blur because blur averages away contrast that is then re-expanded. This tool always emits blur, brightness, contrast, grayscale, hue-rotate, saturate, sepia, invert, which is a sensible canonical order. Two quirks are worth knowing: hue-rotate is a cheap matrix approximation rather than a true rotation around a perceptual hue wheel, so saturated colours drift unevenly; and sepia plus grayscale do not commute, so applying both ends up gray either way but through a different intermediate. The output omits neutral functions to keep the declaration short and to avoid needless GPU work.

Targeted Use Cases

• Hover states that lift an image slightly with brightness or saturate tweaks.
• Dimmed and blurred overlays behind modals.
• Accessible dark-mode image treatment using brightness and contrast.
• Retro effects combining sepia, contrast and hue-rotate.

Notes & Gotchas

• Keep blur values small on interactive elements; large blurs are expensive to composite.
• Remember the fixed output order when you reason about stacking, because each function consumes the previous output.
• Prefer filter over a pre-edited image when the effect must respond to hover or state.
• Animate only the filter property itself, not individual function values, for the widest browser support.

Frequently Asked Questions