Paint Mixing Calculator
Find paint mixing ratios to achieve your target color. Select from common artist pigments and get mixing recipes with complementary color theory info.
Paint Mixing Calculator
Calculator
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Formula: Mixed Color = Sum(Ratio × Pigment RGB) / Sum(Ratios)
Worked example — ~67% Burnt Sienna + 22% Black + 11% Red
Formula
Mixed Color = Sum(Ratio × Pigment RGB) / Sum(Ratios)
This calculator uses RGB color space approximation to estimate mixing ratios. Real paint mixing is subtractive (pigments absorb light), while this uses a simplified model. Results are approximate starting points — always mix small test amounts first.
Worked Examples
Example 1: Mixing Saddle Brown
Problem:Mix saddle brown (#8B4513) from basic palette colors.
Solution:Start with Burnt Sienna as the base (closest single pigment) Add a small amount of Ivory Black to deepen Add a touch of Cadmium Red for warmth Ratio approximately: 6 parts Burnt Sienna, 2 parts Black, 1 part Red Adjust with Yellow Ochre if needed for a warmer tone
Result:~67% Burnt Sienna + 22% Black + 11% Red
Example 2: Creating Sage Green
Problem:Mix sage green (#87AE73) from available colors.
Solution:Start with Sap Green as the base Add Titanium White to lighten to sage level Add a tiny bit of Yellow Ochre for warmth Ratio: 4 parts Sap Green, 5 parts White, 1 part Yellow Ochre Sage green is a muted, desaturated green — the white does the heavy lifting
Result:~40% Sap Green + 50% White + 10% Yellow Ochre
Frequently Asked Questions
How does paint mixing work?
Paint mixing follows subtractive color theory — each pigment absorbs (subtracts) certain wavelengths of light and reflects others. When you mix two colors, the result absorbs wavelengths from both paints, producing a darker, less saturated color. This is different from light mixing (additive), where combining colors gets brighter. Key principles: Red + Yellow = Orange, Blue + Yellow = Green, Red + Blue = Purple. Adding white creates tints, adding black creates shades, and adding the complementary color creates muted, earth-tone variations.
Why doesn't my mixed color match the target exactly?
Several factors make exact color matching challenging. Digital screens use RGB (additive light), while paint uses subtractive pigments — the physics are fundamentally different. Paint pigments are not 'pure' primaries: each brand's 'red' has different undertones. Paint Mixing Calculator provides a starting point estimate based on RGB interpolation. In practice, mix small amounts first, compare in natural light (not fluorescent), and adjust. Professional color matchers use spectrophotometers and custom pigment formulas for exact matches.
What is a complementary color?
A complementary color sits opposite on the color wheel — red/green, blue/orange, yellow/purple. When placed next to each other, complementary colors create maximum visual contrast and make each other appear more vibrant. When mixed together in paint, they neutralize each other, creating gray or brown (useful for creating shadows and muted tones). In art, complementary color schemes are eye-catching and dynamic. The 'complement' of #8B4513 (saddle brown) is #74BAEC (sky blue).
What are the best basic colors to start with?
A limited palette of 5-6 colors can mix almost any color. The essential palette: Cadmium Red (warm red), Alizarin Crimson (cool red), Cadmium Yellow (warm yellow), Ultramarine Blue (warm blue), Titanium White, and Ivory Black. With these, you can mix any secondary and tertiary color. Some artists add Burnt Sienna (earth tones), Yellow Ochre (skin tones), and Viridian Green (landscapes). A limited palette forces you to learn color mixing deeply and produces more harmonious paintings.
What is the difference between tint, shade, and tone?
Tint: base color + white. Makes colors lighter and pastel (pink is a tint of red). Shade: base color + black. Makes colors darker and deeper (navy is a shade of blue). Tone: base color + gray (or complementary). Makes colors more muted and natural-looking. In practice, avoid using pure black for shadows — mix dark colors from complementary pairs (blue + orange, purple + yellow) for richer, more lifelike shadows. Use white sparingly, as too much makes colors look chalky.
What is tinting strength and why does one pigment dominate a mix?
Tinting strength is how strongly a pigment colours a mixture relative to its volume. Modern synthetic organics such as phthalo blue and quinacridone are extremely strong, so a brush tip of phthalo will overwhelm a large pile of titanium white, while earth pigments like yellow ochre and raw umber are weak and need generous amounts to shift a mix. A ratio produced here is measured in parts by volume and takes no account of that difference, so when a recipe includes a high-strength pigment add it last, in slivers, and stop as soon as the hue lands.
How do transparent and opaque pigments behave differently in a mix?
Opaque pigments such as titanium white, the cadmiums, and most earths cover what is beneath them and lighten a mix by scattering light. Transparent pigments such as the quinacridones, phthalos, and alizarin let light pass through to the layer below and darken a mix by absorption. That is why a colour built by glazing thin transparent layers over a light ground glows, while the same hue mixed with white on the palette looks flat and chalky. Decide which route you want before mixing, because a heavily white-loaded mix cannot be glazed back to transparency.
Should I measure parts by volume or by weight, and how do I reproduce a mix later?
The parts here are volumes, which is how palette mixing is normally done: a knife-load, a syringe measure, or spoons of equal size. Weight is more reproducible for large batches such as house paint or a big background, since pigment densities differ and a heaped scoop varies. Whichever you use, mix enough in one go to finish the passage, because matching a mixed colour later is far harder than making extra now. Record the recipe as parts, paint a labelled swatch on scrap of the same ground, and let it dry before judging, since acrylics in particular shift as they cure.
Why do mixes turn muddy when I add more pigments?
Each pigment absorbs part of the spectrum, so every pigment added subtracts more light and pushes the mix towards neutral grey or brown. Combining pigments that lie far apart on the colour wheel neutralises fastest, which is exactly the mechanism behind mixing a complement to knock back a colour. Keeping mixes to two pigments plus white preserves saturation; three is usually the practical limit. If a mix has gone dull, adding more of the dominant hue rarely rescues it, so it is quicker to start again from clean pigment.
What does the match accuracy percentage actually measure?
It comes from the straight-line distance between the target and the mixed colour in RGB space, scaled against the largest possible distance, which is about 441.7 units, the diagonal between pure black and pure white. So 100 percent means the two RGB triples are identical and lower values mean a larger channel-by-channel gap. It is a screen-space measure, not a measure of how similar two painted swatches look to the eye, since perceptual difference depends on hue, lightness, and the light you are viewing in. Treat a high figure as a promising starting recipe to test on the palette.
References
Background & Theory
Subtractive vs. Additive Color Mixing
This calculator's RGB-based estimate is a deliberate simplification worth understanding: screens mix light additively (red + green light = yellow light), while paint mixes pigments subtractively (each pigment absorbs certain wavelengths and reflects the rest, so mixing pigments generally darkens and desaturates rather than brightens).
| Mixing type | Medium | Effect of combining |
|---|---|---|
| Additive (RGB) | Light — screens, stage lighting | Colors get brighter; all channels at max = white |
| Subtractive (pigment) | Paint, ink, dye | Colors get darker/duller; all pigments mixed = near-black/gray |
Because this calculator interpolates in RGB (additive) space as a practical approximation for on-screen color picking, its ratio output is a starting point, not a lab-accurate pigment formula — real paint brands vary in undertone and tinting strength even within the "same" named color, per Golden Paints' and Gamblin's technical mixing guides (see References).
Real-World Use Case: Building a Limited Palette for a New Painter
A classic limited palette of just 5-6 pigments — a warm and cool red, warm and cool blue, warm yellow, plus white and black — can mix nearly the full visible color range through systematic combination, which is why many painting instructors deliberately restrict beginners to a small palette rather than buying 40 pre-mixed tubes. This calculator's pigment picker mirrors that approach: selecting only 2-3 base colors and searching for the best-fit ratio against a target teaches the same subtractive-mixing intuition a limited palette is designed to build, rather than jumping straight to a pre-made "burnt sienna" tube.
Reviewed for accuracy by Daniel Agrici, Founder & Lead Developer · Editorial policy
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