Pass 1: did the dominant lane land?
Before you obsess over tiny sliders, decide whether the palette landed in the correct dominant lane at all. A believable overall mood can still hide a big lane error that the engine is right to punish.
How Toon Tone Scoring Works
Read the number like a measurement report, not a grade. It is most useful when it tells you what category of edit the palette is asking for next.
What the engine is comparing
Each part is measured against the target using ΔE (delta E), a perceptual color-distance model. Lower ΔE means your guess is closer in a way that better tracks human vision than raw RGB numbers alone.
score = round(100 × e^(-0.03 × ΔE²))
You do not need to memorize the formula. You only need to remember that the number falls away faster as the offset grows, which is why “close enough” can collapse more sharply than players expect.
Run the score through four passes
Pass 2: which component became the outlier?
Toon Tone averages part scores, so one stubborn accent or one dark support area can become the outlier that drags the full number down harder than the page feels at first glance.
Pass 3: is this a coarse error or a fine error?
A coarse error means the round never settled into the right neighborhood. A fine error means the overall read was close, but one value, saturation band, or support tone stayed outside tolerance.
Pass 4: what edit class comes next?
Use the number to choose an edit class: dominant-lane reset, value cleanup, saturation cleanup, or one-component repair. The score is useful when it narrows the next move, not when it simply flatters or frustrates you.
Score bands are hints, not verdicts
95–100
Perfect! / 🎯
You are extremely close to the target color.
85–94
Amazing! / 🟢
A very strong match with only small visible differences.
70–84
Great! / 🟡
Clearly recognizable, but not yet a near-perfect match.
55–69
Good! / 🟠
Reasonable broad recognition, but precision is still off.
40–54
Not bad / 🔴
You remembered the general idea more than the exact tone.
0–39
Keep practicing / ⚫
Your guess drifted far enough that the real palette is still teaching you something important.
Typical number patterns and what they usually signal
High number, visible mismatch
That usually means you are no longer in rebuild territory. One support tone, one dark patch, or one oversaturated accent is probably doing most of the damage.
Middle number on an easy flagship page
This is the classic “looks kind of right, behaves wrong” signal. The page probably kept the mood but lost either the dominant lane or one expensive secondary relationship.
Low number on a familiar page
Recognition is no longer helping. The engine is telling you the round failed structurally enough that cosmetic slider nudges are the wrong response.
A four-question score check
- Confirm the dominant lane before touching smaller edits.
- Look for the outlier component that is poisoning the average.
- Classify the error as coarse or fine before choosing a response.
- Test the chosen edit class on one more run before escalating outward.
Apply the score on one real round before reading another explanation.