Any colour you want, on your palette in minutes.

How Chromilla mixes paint

Chromilla uses subtractive Kubelka-Munk mixing on real pigment data and calibrates each recipe against the tubes from your brand. We normalise for tinting strength and dry-down per medium, so the parts you see are the parts you actually squeeze.

Frequently asked questions

How do I mix a clean green without it going muddy?

Use a yellow and a blue that both lean toward green, and keep red out of the mix. A bright, cool result comes from a green-shade yellow (like Hansa Yellow Light) plus a green-shade blue (like Phthalo Blue). Start at roughly 3:1 yellow to blue, then nudge blue in a little at a time. Green turns muddy when the blue carries red in it (like Ultramarine), because yellow plus blue plus red is the recipe for grey. If you only own a warm yellow and a warm blue, add a touch of white to lift the chroma back up.

Why do my mixed colours turn muddy?

Muddiness means you have unintentionally mixed all three primaries, which moves the colour toward grey. Most muddy mixes happen because one of your two tubes secretly leans toward the third primary. Cadmium Red leans orange, Ultramarine leans purple, and many yellows lean warm. The fix is to pick tubes by their bias, not just their name, and to mix with two pigments where you can. A colour with two pigments stays cleaner than the same colour built from four.

What three paint tubes can mix the most colours?

If you are limited to three tubes, choose a magenta, a cyan-leaning blue, and a mid yellow. Magenta plus yellow gives clean oranges and reds. Cyan plus yellow gives clean greens. Magenta plus cyan gives clean violets. A true red, true blue, true yellow set looks intuitive but mixes dull secondaries, which is why printers use magenta and cyan instead.

How do I match a specific paint colour using tubes I already own?

Tell Chromilla which tubes you have, then point it at the target colour, and it returns the ratio that uses only those tubes. Chromilla reads a target three ways: your camera, an uploaded photo, or a pasted hex code. It then searches the pigment data for the closest mix your selected brand and tubes can actually reach. You get the tube list, the part-by-part ratio, and a swatch showing how the mix will look once it dries. You are never told to buy a tube you did not select.

Can I match a colour from a photo or a hex code?

Yes. Chromilla accepts a live camera sample, an uploaded image, or a hex value like #3A7D44. For a photo, you tap the exact pixel you want to match, which avoids guessing from a whole image. For a hex code, paste it straight in, which is useful for matching a brand colour or a digital reference. The output is the same in every case: tubes, ratio, and a dried-down swatch.

How do I darken a colour without using black?

Darken with the complement of the colour, or with a dark transparent pigment, instead of reaching for black. Black dulls chroma and often shifts the hue toward grey-green. To deepen a red, add a little of its complement (a green) or a touch of dark blue. To deepen a yellow, add a small amount of violet or raw umber rather than black. This keeps the shadow colour alive instead of flat.

Why does my mixed colour look different once it dries?

Most paints shift in value and chroma as they dry, which is called drydown. Acrylics commonly dry slightly darker than they look when wet. Some watercolours dry lighter and lose a little saturation. This is why a mix that looked perfect on the palette can miss the target on the surface. Chromilla shows a dried-down swatch with the recipe, so you mix to where the colour lands, not where it starts.

How accurate are the mixing ratios?

The ratios are calculated from measured pigment data per brand, not from generic colour theory. Each recipe targets the smallest visible difference between your mix and the target, measured as Delta E. A small Delta E means most eyes would call it a match. Chromilla is honest when a target sits outside what your selected tubes can physically reach, instead of pretending every colour is mixable. If you are close but not exact, Mix Correction compares your wet swatch to the target and tells you the exact drop to add.

Does Chromilla work with my paint brand?

Chromilla uses brand-specific catalogs built from verified pigment data, so the ratios match the tubes you actually own. You select your brand, then your tubes, and recipes are generated against that exact set. It supports acrylic, oil, and watercolour, with mixing tips tuned to how each medium behaves. If your brand is not listed yet, the closest verified catalog still gives a workable starting ratio.

What is Chromilla?

Chromilla is a web app that matches any colour to an exact paint-tube recipe. You give it a target colour from your camera, a photo, or a hex code, and it returns the tubes and ratios to mix it. It is built for painters who want to spend time painting, not guessing at the palette. The tagline is “Mix any colour. Honest about paint,” because it tells you when a colour cannot be reached as readily as when it can. No colour theory knowledge is required to use it.

Do I need to know colour theory to use Chromilla?

No. Chromilla does the colour theory for you and hands back a plain recipe. You pick a colour, it gives you tubes and parts, you mix. The contextual tips explain the why if you want to learn, but you can ignore them and still get the mix. This makes it useful for a first-week beginner and a working professional alike.

How do I fix a colour that is close but slightly off?

Use Mix Correction: lay a small wet swatch next to the target and let Chromilla compare them. It reads the gap between your swatch and the target. Then it tells you the exact tube and amount to add to close the gap. This turns nearly right into right without starting the mix over. It is the difference between guessing a correction and measuring one.

Does it work for acrylic, oil and watercolour?

Yes. Chromilla supports acrylic, oil and watercolour, and adjusts the recipe for each medium. Watercolour accounts for dilution and dry-down lift, oil accounts for the slower binder and richer gloss, and acrylic accounts for the colour shift as it dries.

Is Chromilla free to use?

10 free mixes, then a free account to keep going. A free account also adds mix history and saved formulas. Mix Correction, Area Sampler, Photo palettes and the Palette Builder are included in Chromilla Pro. Start with a free 14-day trial (card required), then $8.99/month. Cancel any time before the trial ends and you won’t be charged.

Does it work on mobile?

Yes. Chromilla runs in any modern mobile browser and is designed for use at the easel. Point your phone’s camera at a reference, sample a colour, and get the recipe instantly. No app install required.

How do I mix two paint colors to get a specific color?

Start with the dominant hue as 60 to 80% of the mix, then add the second color in 10 to 20% increments until the swatch reads the target. Adjust value last: white to lighten, the complement to darken cleanly. Chromilla returns the exact ratio for any target hex.

What colors make brown, beige or skin tones?

Brown comes from any two complementary colors: red + green, orange + blue, or yellow + purple. Beige is brown plus Titanium White. Skin tones build from Yellow Ochre + Burnt Sienna + white, shifted warmer or cooler with a touch of red or blue.

How do I make a color lighter or darker without changing the hue?

Lighten with Titanium White in 5% steps (or water for watercolour). Darken with a small amount of the color’s complement before reaching for black: black cools and dulls. If the hue shifts, re-tint with a dot of the original base pigment.

How do I mix paint to match a photo or color I see?

Photograph under neutral daylight, sample the exact pixel for the hex, then mix the recipe for that hex. Chromilla’s Color Extractor pulls hex codes from any photo and the camera sampler reads colors directly from real-world references.

What ratio do I use for custom paint colors?

Pigments vary in tinting strength by up to 20x, so 50/50 is rarely right. Start at 4:1 base to modifier and nudge in 10% steps. For tints, expect 80 to 90% white to 10 to 20% color. Chromilla’s ratios already account for each pigment’s tinting strength.

Can I mix different paint brands or finishes?

Within the same medium, yes: expect small color shifts because pigment loads differ between brands. Matte + gloss mix to roughly satin. Never combine oil and acrylic in the same wet layer. Pick your brand in Chromilla to recalibrate the recipe for your tubes.

How do I fix paint that's muddy, too dark or too bright?

Muddy: restart with two pigments plus white. Too dark: lift with Titanium White and re-tint. Too bright: knock saturation back with 1 to 3% of the complement, not black. The Mix Correction tool turns a wet sample plus the target into a one-step correction recipe.

How much of each color do I need for a liter of a custom shade?

Multiply each percentage by your target volume. For 1 L of a 70/20/10 recipe, that’s 700 ml base + 200 ml modifier + 100 ml white. Mix in batches under 1 L and combine them at the end to even out batch-to-batch variation.

More step-by-step recipes: browse all paint mixing guides.