Color Mixing
A color mixer that blends colors the way they really combine and works out a paint recipe for the shade you need. Choose realistic paint mixing (blue and yellow make green, just like on a palette), additive light, subtractive ink or a perceptual blend, and compare the models side by side. In the “Find a recipe” tab, pick a color from a photo, correct it against a sheet of white paper, mark the paints you own — and get the proportions for up to four paints; if your batch misses the color, find out what to add.
How to mix colors and find a recipe
“Mix colors” shows what a mix gives; “Find a recipe” finds the proportions for a color you need.
Type a code or pick the color from a photo; for a recipe, mark the paints you own.
The mixed color in HEX, RGB, HSL, CMYK and OKLCH, or a recipe in parts and milliliters.
Compare the models or check a test batch — the tool tells you what to add.
Blend paint, light or digital colors and work out a recipe for the shade you need
Mixing model
Colors
Side by side: every model
The same colors mixed five ways. Notice that paint gives green, light gives white and a plain RGB average gives gray — this is why most mixers feel “wrong”. Tap a card to switch.
Blend steps
A stepped gradient between your colors, using the active model. Click any step to copy its code.
Accessibility of the result
WCAG contrast of the mixed color and how it looks to people with color-vision deficiency.
1The color you need
Type a code, a color name or a RAL number — or pick the color from a photo with the eyedropper.
Cameras shift hue and brightness. Tap “Set white”, then touch a sheet of white paper lying in the same light as the sample — every color you pick is corrected.
2Your paints
Mark the paints you have — the recipe uses only these. Each chip shows the paint straight from the tube on the left and mixed with white on the right.
Each paint is modeled from the pigments its maker lists. ≈ means a pigment our library lacks, or a blend of several: the proportions were estimated from the maker's swatch.
Strength is how little of a paint it takes to tint white. Very strong: phthalo blues and greens, dioxazine, carbon black. Not sure? Leave it at “normal” and check your mix in step 4.
Brush a stroke of each paint onto white paper, let it dry and photograph it in daylight. Load the photo in step 1, choose “One of my paints”, tap “Set white” and touch the paper, then tap each stroke.
3Recipe
Choose a color in step 1 — the recipe appears here.
4Check your mix
Mixed it and the color is off? Tell us what you got — ideally photograph a dry stroke next to the sample and a sheet of white paper. We will tell you what to add.
How to mix and hit the color
- Start with the largest part — usually the white or the main color — and add the rest a little at a time, mixing well.
- Add strong paints — phthalos, dioxazine, carbon black — on the tip of the knife: an extra drop cannot be taken back.
- Mix a small test batch first, brush a stroke and let it dry. Compare the dry stroke with the sample in daylight.
- Acrylic darkens as it dries; gouache gets lighter. The recipe is calculated for dry paint.
- Missed? Press “Check my mix”: the tool tells you what to add and can remember your paints’ strength.
Popular color mixes
Tap a pair to load it into the mixer and see the result.
Which paints to mix to get a color
Proportions for the 12-paint artist set, the one the “Find a recipe” tab starts with. Have different paints? Click “Use my paints” and the recipe is recalculated from the ones you tick.
Lilac
- Titanium White95%
- Dioxazine Purple3.4%
- Quinacridone Crimson1.4%
share of the volume
Use my paintsWhat makes it different
Common uses
- See what color two paints make before mixing them for real.
- Work out how to mix your paints to match a color in a photo: a wall, fabric or painting.
- Fix a batch that came out darker or brighter than you wanted.
- Build a smooth gradient between brand colors for a design.
- Understand why blue + yellow is green in paint but white in light.
Why this mixer
Almost every online color mixer just averages RGB values, so blue and yellow come out gray — nothing like real paint. This tool mixes colors through their light absorption and scattering, the way pigments behave (the Kubelka–Munk model via the open-source spectral.js engine), and its library of 27 pigments is calibrated on laboratory measurements of acrylic paints mixed with white. It builds recipes only from the paints you own, reads colors from photos with a correction for the lighting, and helps fix a batch that missed. Everything is calculated right in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
What color do blue and yellow make?
In paint, blue and yellow make green — that is what the default “Paint” model shows here, because real pigments mix by absorbing light. With light (additive), blue and yellow instead make white. A naive RGB average gives gray, which is why so many other mixers look wrong.
What color do red and blue make?
Mixed as paint, red and blue make purple, leaning to a deep violet or maroon depending on the exact reds and blues. As light, red and blue make magenta.
What two colors make brown?
Brown comes from mixing complementary colors — for example red + green, orange + blue, or all three primaries together. Try the “Red + Green” chip below.
How do I match a paint color from a photo?
In the “Find a recipe” tab, upload a photo or take one, choose “The color I need” and touch the sample — the loupe shows where you landed, and the color is averaged over a square of pixels. Put a sheet of white paper next to the sample and press “Set white”: that corrects the hue and brightness the camera shifts.
Can the recipe use only the paints I have?
Yes. Under “Add a paint”, choose “By brand” and tick the numbers on your tubes: the catalog covers Nevskaya Palitra (Master Class, Sonnet, Ladoga), Gamma (Studio, Old Master), Winsor & Newton, Liquitex, Golden, Royal Talens and Daler-Rowney paints, modeled from the pigments each maker lists. If your brand is missing, tick pigments in the library or add a paint by color — by its code or with the eyedropper on a photo of a stroke. The recipe uses only the paints you chose, one to four of them.
Why did my mix come out darker or brighter than the recipe?
Usually it is pigment strength: one brand of ultramarine tints white twice as strongly as another. Acrylic also darkens as it dries, while gouache gets lighter. Press “Check my mix” and enter what you got: the tool works out what to add and can remember your paints’ strength for the next recipes.
How accurate is the recipe?
The library pigments are calibrated on laboratory measurements of acrylic paints mixed with white: on held-out measurements a tint is predicted with an average ΔE2000 of about 1.7 — right at the edge of visible. But every brand has its own pigment strength, and paints you add by color are known only by their color. So mix a test batch first, then use “Check my mix”.
What do the parts in a recipe mean?
Parts are shares by volume: “8 parts white and 1 part ochre” can be measured with a spoon, a cap or a syringe. For acrylic and gouache, parts by weight give nearly the same result. If you need an exact amount, enter the volume of the mix and the tool converts the parts into milliliters, and small amounts into drops.
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