Talk:Color mixing

This article was in bad shape, with a strange tangential section about HTML color codes, inaccuracies, and informal wording. It could probably still be better. Doozer (Talk) 23:01, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the use of "tertiary color" is incorrect in the second sentence: "In both cases there are three primary colors, three secondary colors (colors made from 2 of the three primary colors in equal amounts), and one tertiary color made from all three primary colors." I think the correct sense is that there are three primaries, there are three secondaries which fall halfway between the primaries (in say the hue dimension, or on a plane in RGB space perpendicular to the monochrome axis), and six tertiary colors that each fall halfway between adjacent primaries and secondaries. As a check I looked up tertiary color and it seems to agree with this view. BTW, I think the article would be improved merely by removing the word "tertiary" from that sentence, but I'm a little reluctant to take the initiative... BananaSlug (talk) 18:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Frankly, tertiary isn't much used in the technical world, which seems to be the perspective of this article, but I would support your proposed edit. The general consensus seems to be that tertiary colours are a mixture of adjacent primaries and secondaries.  Black, white and grey are invariably described as neutral, a separate classification from primary, secondary and tertiary and I would support the article using neutral instead of tertiary.  However, there is a faction in the art world that wants to define tertiary as a mixture of all three primaries such as in this book which agrees with the current article.  I could also point out that if one were to define tertiary as a mixture of any primary and secondary, the neutral colours would then be included since a primary plus its complementary secondary will produce a neutral.  While an appealing scheme, I could not find any sources to support my excellent original research.  Sp in ni  ng  Spark  20:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

This article is inconsistent with the article "Additive Color." The article "Additive Color" talks about the mixing of color from television pixels as an illusion of color mixing (like a Seurat painting) rather than actual color mixing.
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.198.87.84 (talk) 19:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

This page could do with a redirect from the British spelling "Colour Mixing" I couldn't originally find it on search.
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.239.98.202 (talk) 07:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. VMS Mosaic (talk) 03:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Are there any formulas for mixing multiple colours when the RGB or CMY values are known? PJ DC (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Answer: [  ] and [    ] makes ?

Can someone explain (maybe even in the article)?
I understand (R = red, G = green, B = blue, C = cyan, M = magenta, Y = yellow, W = white)

Light (additive): R+G=Y, R+B=M, B+G=C, R+G+B=W

printer (subtractive): On white paper, B filters out G and R; R filters out G and B; G filters out R and B.               C filters out R, M filters G out, Y filters out B, R+G+B filters out everything. to get G you mix Y and C which collectively filter out everything but G               to get B you mix C and M which collectively filter all but B                to get R you mix Y and M which collectively filter all but R                to get black theoretically you mix R + G + B (but in reality use black ink cartridge) So on white paper, Y+C=G, C+M=B, Y+M=R

So why, when you paint, etc., does R+B=M (purple), R+Y=Orange, B+Y=G and completely false that Y+C=G, C+M=B, Y+M=R, and B+Y=W — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.84.231.3 (talk) 20:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Because the pigments used in paints are very imperfect. The ones used in printers are better, but still imperfect. The section that begins "So why, when you paint..." contains a lot of false assumptions, including that mixing blue and yellow paint makes white. It doesn't. With perfect pigments it would make black. In practice it makes a dark green because practical blue paint contains some green. 87.75.117.183 (talk) 23:23, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Subtractive color mixing not "more intuitive"
The article states repeatedly that subtractive color mixing is intuitive while additive is not. However this is only the author's opinion. As we move further into the digital age you will find that more and more people find additive color more intuitive than subtractive color (as digital, light-based graphics become more common than physical graphics). I myself found this article while trying to understand how it is possible that mixing yellow and blue could yield green, as subtractive color mixing is quite counterintuitive for me. The question of whether additive or subtractive mixing is more intuitive is subjective to each person, therefore I propose removing any references to intuitiveness altogether. I feel that this language reinforces the bias towards subtractive primary colors, even while additive mixing becomes more common.

I need colour ""Shirees
I need colour "Shirees 41.13.228.109 (talk) 10:12, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I can't find any information at all about "average color mixing."
There's no sources linked at all for average color mixing, and looking at the edit history, it seems to just have been added because someone felt like it would fit in. It was a year ago and their reason was "Why wasn't there average color method?" The original was full of errors in grammar, and it looked a lot like the user just made everything up. Their user page doesn't exist anymore. I haven't been able to find anything about it online, which really makes me think it's all made up. 47.152.102.147 (talk) 04:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It smacks of, but I think the content is mostly correct, I think, albeit poorly formulated. I will try to find some support ref for the ideas. Curran919 (talk) 22:13, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * After reading some literature, I made a big (despite the +2byte edit) reorganization of the page just relying on the old content. I will reapproach this after my exams to incorporate the excellent explanations (and citations) from Dr. David Briggs' "The Dimensions of Color". Curran919 (talk) 00:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Mixing all 3 primary colors and both neutral colors together
What happens when you mix red, yellow, blue, black, and white together? Nate-Dawg921 (talk) 01:06, 24 April 2024 (UTC)