Question 1

What is the Color Mixing Chart?

Accepted Answer

Two charts of the same palette, computed with real pigment physics. Palette range shows everything your colors can make, by hue and lightness. Color pairs shows what every pair of colors makes at 1:1. Pick a palette, choose which of its colors to use, generate, and switch between the two charts with the tabs above the chart. Click any square for its recipe.

Question 2

What does the Palette range chart show?

Accepted Answer

Columns are color families, from greys and reds to purples; rows go from light to dark. Each square is the brightest color your palette reaches at that hue and lightness, and clicking it shows the recipe in parts. It answers what your palette is capable of: which greens, blues or pinks you can mix with the tubes you have, and which you cannot.

Question 3

Why are some squares striped?

Accepted Answer

A striped square is a color your palette cannot reach: no mix of its colors lands on that hue and lightness with enough color to read as that hue. Adding a tube from that color family usually fills it. Recipes are kept practical: no paint is outnumbered more than 64 to 1 by another paint in the same recipe (128 to 1 when a single color is tinted with white). A square that only a speck of paint could reach counts as out of reach.

Question 4

Why do recipes use at most three colors plus white?

Accepted Answer

So they stay easy to mix. A fourth color makes a recipe much harder to measure and rarely reaches a color three could not.

Question 5

How do I read the Color pairs chart?

Accepted Answer

Find one color in the left column and the other in the top row: the square where they meet is the two mixed in equal parts. Click it to see 5 ratios, from 5:1 (mostly the first color) through 1:1 to 1:5 (mostly the second), which shows how the mix shifts as you change the proportions. The diagonal is each color mixed with itself, so it shows the color unchanged. The chart is symmetric, Red + Blue equals Blue + Red, so you can look a pair up from either side.

Question 6

How many charts can I generate?

Accepted Answer

The default palettes are unlimited and instant: their charts are computed in advance. Charts for your own palettes, or for a different selection of colors, are computed for you and count toward a daily limit: 3 a day on a free account, unlimited on Pro. Each chart you generate counts once, so Palette range and Color pairs for the same colors are two. Opening recipes and ratio variations does not count.

Question 7

Why is there a 12-color limit?

Accepted Answer

A 12-color Color pairs chart already has 66 pairs, and larger grids get hard to read. For the Palette range, 12 colors already reach almost every square. If your palette has more than 12 colors, pick the ones you want in the chart.

Question 8

How accurate are the mixing results?

Accepted Answer

Both charts use the Trycolors Kubelka-Munk spectral mixing engine, which models how real pigments absorb and scatter light. Results are most accurate for paints with measured mixing data, which covers the major paint brands; custom colors use computed data that approximates real pigment behavior.

Question 9

Can I use my own palette?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Any palette you create on Trycolors works with both charts: select it from the palette dropdown, pick up to 12 colors and generate. You can also open the Mixing Chart straight from the palette editor.

Color Mixing Chart

1. Select Palette

2. Pick Colors

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