How to make UIColor "softer"

Question

Often look at other applications that can make the color different but close to the color. It's like the two colors of the appendix.

How can UIColor be achieved?

Answer 1

A better solution than lowering the alpha (which may cause other things behind it to appear) is to lower the color's saturation.

Here's a UIColor extension that gets the HSB of a color, lowers the saturation, and returns the new color with the same alpha:

extension UIColor {
    func softer() -> UIColor {
        var h: CGFloat = 0
        var s: CGFloat = 0
        var b: CGFloat = 0
        var a: CGFloat = 0
        if self.getHue(&h, saturation: &s, brightness: &b, alpha: &a) {
            // Change the 0.5 to suit your needs
            return UIColor(hue: h, saturation: s * 0.5, brightness: b, alpha: a)
        } else {
            return self
        }
    }
}

// Examples:    
let orange = UIColor.orange
let softOrange = orange.softer()
let brown = UIColor(red: 0.4392, green: 0.2510, blue: 0.1882, alpha: 1.0)
let softBrown = brown.softer()