Paint Mixing Calculator
Trying to mix a specific color? Enter your target and get part-by-part recipes from a classic five-paint set (cadmium red, cadmium yellow, ultramarine, titanium white, ivory black). Built on a subtractive-mixing approximation — treat recipes as starting points; real pigments vary by brand and medium.
≈ archive Lime Core Dust
Cadmium RedCadmium YellowUltramarine BlueTitanium WhiteIvory Black
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3 parts Cadmium Yellow + 3 parts Ultramarine Blue + 2 parts Titanium WhiteΔE 4.2 — Noticeable at a glance — reads as the same family, different shade.
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2 parts Cadmium Yellow + 2 parts Ultramarine Blue + 1 part Titanium WhiteΔE 4.5 — Noticeable at a glance — reads as the same family, different shade.
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4 parts Cadmium Yellow + 3 parts Ultramarine Blue + 1 part Titanium WhiteΔE 5.0 — Noticeable at a glance — reads as the same family, different shade.
Left swatch = predicted mix, right = your target. The model can't reach every color (saturated cyans/magentas exceed this paint set's gamut) — a high ΔE means you need different paints, not different ratios.
Why paint doesn't mix like light
Screens add light: red plus green gets brighter and yellower. Paints subtract it: each pigment absorbs part of the spectrum, so mixes get darker — yellow plus blue leaves green behind. This page approximates that with weighted geometric mixing in linear light, which gets recipes directionally right; serious pigment modeling needs Kubelka-Munk theory and measured spectra.