Colour Mixer is a planning tool for real-world paint and ink mixes.
Colours blend like pigment (Kubelka–Munk via spectral.js), not like screen RGB averages.
Values are approximate mass-tones for planning — not brand-certified lab data.
1. Choose a medium
Switch at the top:
- Watercolour — lighten with water; paper is your white
- Gouache — water + white + body (matte / opaque)
- Acrylic — white, black, covering power
- Oil — same body controls; linen ground by default
- Ink — dilution washes
2. Build a mix
- Tap paints from Limited, Brands, Common, Saved, or Custom
- Adjust parts per paint; use water / white / black / body as the medium allows
- Try sample mix loads Ultramarine + Burnt Sienna (classic grey)
- Read the large swatch, hex, RGB, and recipe; copy hex anytime
- Undo / Redo / Clear in the Mix panel header
3. Paint tags
Swatches show planning traits (inferred from pigment codes / names when not set by hand):
- Opacity — transparent · semi · opaque
- Staining — low · med · high
- Granulating — sedimentary texture tendency
4. Result tools
- Mud score — clean / watch / risk from paint count, complements, chroma
- Viewing light — CIE D65 (day), A (warm 2856 K), D75 (cool daylight). Spectral reflectance × illuminant SPD × CIE 1931 2° CMFs, Bradford-adapted to sRGB. Three-way strip compares all at once
- Harmonies — complement, analogous, triad chips; tap to add the nearest limited-palette paint
- Pigment vs RGB — Kubelka–Munk mix beside dumb RGB average
- Save — history on this device only
- Add glaze — push the mix onto the glaze stack
- Export card — download a PNG recipe card
- Share — copy a
?mix= link (and QR); open the link later to restore the recipe. Mobile may offer the system share sheet
5. Glaze stack
- Pick a ground (paper, canvas, linen, toned panel…)
- Layers stack bottom → top with per-layer strength
- Copy the composite hex or Use as mix base
6. Reference
- Hue wheel — mix and tube positions; click for a target hue and nearest paints
- Harmony rings — optional arcs for analogous / complement / triad
- Value strip — same mix lighter → fuller (water or body steps)
- Temperature chip — warm / cool / neutral bias
7. Studio tools
- Mixing chart — ratio grid from the first two paints in the mix
- Compare A / B — park two recipes side by side and reload either
- Print palette chart — limited tubes + sample 1:1 mixes
- Share QR — same share link as a QR image
- Match from photo — sample a colour, get suggested limited-palette recipes
- Tips — medium-specific mixing advice
- History — reload past saves from this browser
8. Saved palettes
Under Palette → Saved, store the paints currently in your mix as a named set.
Tap a swatch to add one colour, or load the whole set.
Keyboard & tips
- ? or Shift+/ — open this help
- Esc — close help
- On phones, a sticky bar keeps hex + recipe visible while you scroll
- Sister tool: Hue & Cry — Sanzo Wada combinations from a photo