Mixing guide
How to paint from a photo, step by step
By Marco, painter and founder of chromilla · Last checked August 2026
To paint from a photo, break the job into three passes. First get the drawing right with a grid or a line sketch. Then plan the light, middle and dark values. Finally mix a recipe for each value zone with the tubes you own, and paint zone by zone. Chromilla's Grid Drawing, Value Study and mixer carry you through all three.
Why the drawing comes first
Most photo paintings fail in the first ten minutes, not the last. If the drawing is off, no amount of accurate mixing saves it. A grid shrinks the problem: you only ever compare one small square of the photo to one small square of the canvas. Sketch mode goes further and removes the photo's texture entirely, so you copy shapes instead of noise.
- Match the grid to your canvas size before you start, so one square on screen is one square on the canvas.
- Draw the big shapes from the sketch, then check details against the photo square by square.
Values before color
A painting reads from across the room because of its values, not its hues. Value Study reduces the photo to three zones so you can check that the light, middle and dark shapes are in the right places before you commit to color. If the three-zone version of your canvas already looks like the subject, the color stage is mostly filling in.
Mixing each zone with your own tubes
Each zone's Mix this button opens a recipe solved from real pigment data for the brand and medium you picked. Mix a little more of each zone than you think you need, because matching a dried mix exactly is much harder than mixing enough the first time. Reserve a swatch of each zone on paper; it becomes your map when you blend between zones.
Step-by-step
Grid the drawing
Open Grid Drawing and load your photo. It adds square cells labeled like a map, sized to your real canvas in inches or cm. Copy one square at a time instead of drawing the whole scene at once.
Or start from a line sketch
Flip the Sketch switch and the photo becomes clean dark lines on a cream background: the subject outline and the edges between the big shapes, with no shading or texture. The red grid stays on top, so you can block in the drawing square by square.
Plan the values
Open Value Study with the same photo. It splits the image into light, middle and dark zones so you can see the big shapes before any color goes down. Squint at the zones, not the photo.
Mix each zone
Tap Mix this on a zone and Chromilla solves a recipe in parts for your brand and medium, for example 2 parts Burnt Umber to 1 part Ultramarine Blue. Mix on the palette and keep a dab of each zone on the palette edge.
Paint dark to light
Block in the dark zone first, then the middle, then the lights. Paint a swatch of each mix and let it dry fully before comparing: acrylic dries darker, watercolor dries lighter.
Try it on your tubes
Start with Grid Drawing
Load a photo, grid it to your canvas size, and flip on Sketch for clean lines to draw from.
Open Chromilla →Frequently asked questions
- How do I mix paint from a photo?
- Open a photo tool like Value Study or Grid Drawing and Chromilla reads the color straight from the photo. Value Study splits it into light, middle and dark zones, and each zone has a Mix this button that opens a recipe you can make with your own tubes. Tapping any square in Grid Drawing works the same way.
- Can I do grid drawing with sketch lines?
- Yes. Grid Drawing has a Sketch switch that turns your photo into clean dark lines on a cream background: the subject outline and the edges between the big shapes, with no shading or texture. The red grid stays on top, so you can block in the drawing square by square before you paint.
- What is the difference between Sketch and grayscale?
- Grayscale turns the photo into tones of gray, so you study how light and dark each area is. Sketch draws clean dark lines on a cream background instead: the subject outline and the edges between the big shapes, with no shading or texture. Use Sketch to block in the drawing, and grayscale or a Value Study to plan the values.
- Which tools need Chromilla Pro?
- The core photo tools are free: Value Study, Grid Drawing, the first steps of a Guided Session, Color Gym and the mixing chart. Chromilla Pro adds the 5 and 7 zone value studies, Mix Correction, Area Sampler, Palette Cards, Tube Calibration, saving scanned tubes, and printing the grid at full canvas size. The pricing page lists everything.